


No Strings Attached

by ShibaScarf



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Music, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Character Study, Class Differences, Dirty Talk, Found Family, Friends With Benefits, Hand Jobs, Lots of Sex, M/M, One Night Stand, Oral Sex, Slow Build, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 19:05:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6251896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShibaScarf/pseuds/ShibaScarf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Booster doesn't do dating.  So this thing with Ted?  Definitely casual.  Totally not a relationship in the least.  Right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. January, Part 1

 

Booster misses football.

He does, really.  He knows that it’s masochistic to watch games on television and dream about what might have been, but he keeps doing it.  He’ll never get to play again, at least nothing more than a touch football game at the park, but that hasn’t meant that he stopped loving the sport.  Still, it’s a little easier to watch the games with a crowd, when he can get caught up in the energy and pretend he never blew his shot at playing in the NFL.

That’s how he finds himself at the bar, nursing a beer and cursing irritably when the Gotham Knights fumble another play.

“Awful game, huh?” says the man sitting next to him at the bar, and Booster casts him a disinterested glance.  The guy must be a workaholic or something, because he looks like he just came from the office- even though it’s a Sunday afternoon. 

“The worst,” Booster agrees amiably, pushing his mostly empty bottle restlessly between his hands on the bar’s surface.

“What’s a Knights fan doing in Metropolis?” Businessman asks, clearly meaning to engage Booster in a conversation.  “Isn’t that sort of like wearing a ‘Kick Me’ sign around here?”

“Not much worse than wearing a full piece suit and tie to a sports bar,” Booster shoots back.  Now that he’s giving Businessman a second look, he’s actually younger than Booster had thought.  Maybe only a year or two older than himself, lightly freckled, dark reddish-brown curly hair, and bags under his eyes that make him look like he’s pulled three all-nighters in a row.  Definitely a workaholic.

“Touche,” Businessman says wryly.  “You new in town?”

“Not so much,” Booster says.  “Two years.  Enough time for me to start to lose my Gotham accent.”

“I’m Ted,” Businessman says, actually offering his hand out for Booster to shake it.  “Nice to meet you.”

“You can call me Booster,” Booster responds a little hesitantly and shakes the guy’s hand.  He’s still not gotten used to the way people in Metropolis are so… friendly.  Gotham citizens know to keep their heads down and not make eye contact with strangers.  Not the case here.

“Well, Booster buddy,” Ted says, giving him a light punch on the shoulder, “let’s see if the Gotham Knights can salvage this game.”

The Gotham Knights, as it turns out, are utterly incapable of making a single successful play for the rest of the game.

Booster is absolutely astonished to find that he doesn’t actually care.  Ted is an entertaining viewing companion, cracking jokes at the commercials onscreen and doing a spot-on impression of the announcers that makes Booster almost fall off his bar stool laughing.  He hasn’t laughed this much in years, not since-  Well, not since he moved to Metropolis.  Admittedly, he hasn’t actually made any friends in Metropolis, so there was no one around to make him laugh.  It feels liberating, like the shadow of his mistakes is just a little less imposing and present on his shoulders.

When the game is over, they move to a booth and order a couple more beers and hors d'oeuvres.  They talk for a long time, not about any one thing in particular.  About tv shows and local restaurants.  Sports.  Movies.  Just light chitchat, but it’s more than Booster’s had in years.

Booster gnaws on a soft pretzel stick and eyes Ted curiously, trying to figure the guy out.

“Something on my face?” Ted asks, giving Booster a crooked smile. 

“Just wondering why someone as fun as you would be at the office on a Sunday,” Booster responds honestly, before he can catch himself.  “You don’t seem like the type.”

“How did you know I was at the office?” Ted starts to ask, before slouching a little and resting his chin on his hand.  “Is it that obvious that I have no life?”

“I’m just good at reading people, I guess,” Booster says, now feeling bad for having poked at a sore spot.  “It’s a little hard to believe that you don’t have a life, though.  I’m sure you have friends.”

“I have friends,” Ted agrees.  “I just haven’t felt like seeing them much.  Or at all.”  He munches on some nachos.  “To be honest, this is the first time I’ve gotten out in months.”

“Ah,” Booster says knowingly.  “Bad break-up, then?”

“Enough about me,” Ted says, utterly failing to smoothly change the subject.  “What about you?  What’s a Gotham kid doing in Metropolis?”

“I’m not a kid,” Booster protests.  “I’m twenty-four.”

“Ha,” Ted says smugly.  “I’m two years older than you.  I can call you a kid if I want to.  Answer the question, kid.”

“Okay, old man,” Booster says wearily, throwing his hands up.  “I moved out here because I needed something different.  You don’t get much more different than Metropolis, when it comes to Gotham.”

“Gotham’s a nice place, though,” Ted muses.  “I’ve been there before.  Nice museums.”  (Booster tries not to flinch at the mention of museums.)  “Good underground music scene.  Ritzy restaurants.”

“Somehow,” Booster says, “I can’t exactly imagine you in the ‘underground music scene’.”

“You’d be wrong,” Ted says, grinning.  “I’ve seen the Sirens, B.C., and Bats.  Live.”

“Bullshit,” Booster says, leaning forward.  “No one sees Bats.  His shows are completely unadvertised.  I went to The Cave every night for a solid year.  Never saw him there.”

“I saw him at a Crime Alley coffeehouse,” Ted says.  “He only played at The Cave the first few years.  Then people started talking about him and he switched things up.  He never shows up where you think he’s going to be.”  He smiles and takes a drink of his beer.  “It was an incredible show, though.  2 in the morning, and the crowd was just hypnotized.”

“Which singer was he with then?” Booster asks, in spite of himself.  He’s so jealous that it hurts.

“Not the first guy,” Ted says, frowning.  “The guy who split off and started Titans, Nightwing?  This was a little while after he left.  It was this other kid.  Short, really rough around the edges.  Harsher voice than Nightwing, but same crazy energy.”

“I hate you,” Booster says miserably.  Ted chuckles and finishes off his beer.

“So what do you do?” Ted asks Booster.  “Job-wise, I mean.”

Booster always lies about this.  Part of it is embarrassment, but another part is just plain habit.  He lies about all kinds of things nowadays.  Especially when he’s just trying to get laid with someone he’ll never see again, which is about the extent of his social interactions as of late.

He’s surprised when the truth comes out of his mouth instead.

“I’m a security guard at a museum in the city,” he says simply.  “I work the night shift.”

Ted, thankfully, doesn’t crack any jokes about that.  Just nods and flags the waitress down to bring him the bill.

“I used to be a scientist,” Ted says.  “Then I got promoted to management.”  Booster tries to imagine Ted in a lab coat, but his mind wanders back to the Bats show.  Ted couldn’t have gone to that in a suit and tie.  To fit in with the Gotham scene, he would have had to dress way down.  Maybe in a leather jacket, although that doesn’t seem Ted’s style.  “Anyway,” Ted says, waking Booster from his thoughts, “I guess I should probably catch a cab back home.” 

Booster checks his watch, stunned to find that it’s already seven.

“Oh,” Booster says.  “Yeah, I guess… I guess I should too.” 

“Wanna share a cab?” Ted offers, and Booster should really say no, because he actually lives close enough to walk home, but-

“Yeah,” he agrees, confusing himself for the third time that night.

“Actually,” Ted says suddenly, when they’re standing on the curb and waiting for their taxi, “I do have some bootleg recordings of the Bats show I went to.  You wanna come over and check it out?”

Booster pulls his coat a little tighter around himself and nods.  Ted grins back at him, and Booster is beginning to wonder what the hell is happening to him tonight.

The overwhelming confusion only intensifies when Ted opens his apartment door, and his place is  _ huge _ .  Big windows overlooking the city, which twinkles in a way that Gotham fog never allowed for.  Huge L-shaped sofa that looks so soft Booster thinks he might never get up if he sits down.  Entertainment system with surround speakers.  Framed art on the wall that is definitely the real deal, not just some poster from the store.

Ted takes Booster’s coat, smiling, and leaves to hang their coats up in the coat closet.  Booster stands numbly in the living room and only just remembers to slap on a confident smile when Ted returns and asks Booster if he wants something to drink.

“Do you have tea?” Booster asks, because that sounds like something sophisticated, right?

Ted frowns and wanders off to his kitchen, which is actually in a separate room because his apartment  _ has _ separate rooms and isn’t a tiny studio like Booster’s.  He pokes his head out a few minutes later, brow furrowed.

“I have beer, water, instant coffee, and grape juice,” Ted admits.  “No tea.”  Booster snorts, Ted grinning apologetically at him.

“Definitely grape juice,” Booster says, feeling a tiny bit better. 

Ted brings it to him in a large pink mug that reads “Science is Sexy”.

“It was the only clean cup I could find,” he says, defensive, when Booster doubles over laughing.

“God,” Booster says, practically crying.  “You are definitely a bachelor, Ted.”  He takes the mug from Ted and gulps down some of the juice.  It tastes like childhood: reminds him of when he was ten and his mother had dragged him and his sister to church to take their first communion.

“Shut up,” Ted says, turning pink.

“How long has it been, anyway?” Booster says, smirking over his mug.  “A couple months?”

“How long has it been?” Ted echoes.  “Since what?”

“Since you last got laid,” Booster says, rolling his eyes and walking over to look at the books on Ted’s shelf.  There are a few books he recognizes, but mostly it’s textbooks on electrical wiring and physics.  A worn out copy of Hitchhikers’ Guide.  Some books in what looks to be Russian?

Booster gets that niggling feeling in his stomach again, like he’s stumbled into a place he really doesn’t belong. 

“I guess it’s been almost two years?” Ted says, behind him, and Booster nearly spits out his juice.

“Two years,” he repeats, raising his eyebrows.  “You’re kidding me, Ted.  Two years?”

“I don’t get out much,” Ted says, crossing his arms.  “It’s not a big deal.”

To Booster, who has honestly never gone a whole week without hooking up with someone in the past year _ , it is kind of a huge deal _ .

Booster takes one more look at his surroundings: the view, the books, the kind of life he’s never had.  He makes a decision.

“So, we should sleep together,” he announces.

  
  



	2. January, Part 2

“I’m sorry, what?” Ted asks, and Booster grins at him.

It’s funny, really, but now that Booster’s decided what tonight is- a one night stand that he knows how to be in control of- he feels much more at ease in this big ritzy apartment.

“I like you,” he says, taking another sip of grape juice.  “And I think I’m reading my signals right enough to say you like me.  So why not?”

Ted sits down on the couch, turning pink up to his ears.

“If I’m wrong, just say so,” Booster says, waving his free hand.  “If you’re not into me, that’s fine.  I thought-“

“It’s not that,” Ted says quickly.  Booster studies him, not quite able to figure out what he’s thinking.  He looks… nervous.  All wide-eyed and flushed, gnawing on his lower lip.

“I thought that’s why you invited me up here,” Booster says, sitting down next to Ted on the couch.  “Isn’t it?”

“Would you believe me if I said I have no idea why I asked you over?” Ted says, and Booster snorts.  “It’s just that—“ Ted says, and he stops for a moment, staring off at nothing as he collects his thoughts.  “It’s been a really long time, and I’m really out of practice with this kind of thing, so I—“

Booster kisses Ted to make him shut up.  Nothing fiercely passionate or pressuring; just a soft kiss on the lips that stops him in his tracks completely.

“There, see?” He says, as Ted blinks back at him.  “It’s not that complicated, Ted.”

Ted leans back in, his eyes fluttering shut, and then they’re kissing again, slow and exploratory.  He is actually a little bit rusty, Booster notes with amusement; their teeth click together once or twice.  This makes Ted chuckle nervously in between kisses, but Booster coaxes him back with soft gentle pecks of reassurance.  After a minute or so, Ted seems to be getting back in the swing of things.  All the same, Booster can feel that Ted’s body is tense and stiff with apprehension, so he lets out a little moan to encourage him.

Ted takes that a little too enthusiastically, however, because his hands come up to Booster’s shoulders as if to push him backwards to lie down on the couch.  This is a problem, as Booster is still clutching his mug of juice, and the sudden tilt causes it to spill.

“Shit,” Booster hisses, scrambling up and away from Ted, but it’s too late.  His Gotham Knights hoodie is stained with grape juice.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” Ted says, hurriedly taking the mug away from him and setting it down on the coffee table.  “Here, I can stick it in the wash real quick.”  He grabs the bottom of Booster’s hoodie and helps him tug it off, then takes off for some other room in the apartment.   Apparently he has his own washer/dryer and doesn’t have to go to the laundromat like Booster.

Booster looks down and realizes he’s wearing the hideous shirt that his sister gave him as a gag gift on their 18th birthday.  It’s got a huge, neon purple horse head on it.  He closes his eyes in one brief moment of horror, and then starts pulling that off too. 

“Okay, it’s in the wash,” Ted says, coming back around the corner as Booster tosses his shirt onto the floor.

“You know, if you wanted me to take my clothes off, you just had to ask,” Booster teases.  Ted licks his lips and laughs nervously again. 

“You’re, um… fit,” Ted says, walking over to the couch.  Booster stretches out on his back and grins.

“Thanks for noticing,” he purrs, expecting Ted to climb on top of him, but instead he kneels on the floor at Booster’s head and kisses him softly.  It’s a little too affectionate for Booster’s tastes, so he slips his tongue into Ted’s mouth and moans again.  Hint hint, Ted.

“God,” Ted says, breathless.  “Should we move this to the bed?”

“Please,” Booster says. 

Ted’s bedroom is, predictably, huge and has the same giant windows with a view of the city.  While Ted is pulling the curtains shut, Booster hops onto the big, soft bed and takes in the room.  Ted is messy, so there are small piles of clothes here and there, and the dresser is overflowing with rummaged about socks and boxers.  There’s a notepad by the side of the bed that’s covered in mathematical equations and schematics, and Booster gets a funny image of Ted rolling over in the middle of the night to scribble down some breakthrough before it eludes him.

Ted turns away from the window and grins at Booster.  He moves to the bed, climbing up and crawling over until he’s across from Booster.

“Is this really happening?” Ted asks, reaching out to touch one side of Booster’s face.  Booster laughs and pulls Ted on top of him.

“It’s happening,” he assures him.  He leans up and kisses Ted with as much slow, dirty promise as he can.  Ted moans into his mouth, delicious and warm.

Booster lies back down, and Ted eagerly follows him.  He’s nipping gently at Booster’s lips, all the while slowly letting his hands come to rest on Booster’s chest.  Ted is so gentle and careful that it’s frankly adorable. 

“You any good at talking dirty?” Booster murmurs, sliding his own hands down to rest on the small of Ted’s back.  Ted is probably blushing in response to the question, but his face is already so pink that it’s hard to tell.  He buries his face in Booster’s neck.

“Uh,” Ted says, throat buzzing against Booster’s skin.  “You’re…. You’re beautiful.  I can’t believe how beautiful you are.”

“That’s not exactly dirty talk,” Booster snickers.  “I mean, thanks?  I meant more like— oh Jesus Christ, _Ted_.”  Ted is sucking on Booster’s earlobe and completely derailing his brain.  Booster spends the next two minutes making inhuman noises as Ted goes back and forth between his earlobe and the shell of his ear.

“You like that, huh?” Ted asks, just a little smug. 

“Fuck you,” Booster says breathlessly.  “That was… _Fuck you_.”  He rolls them over so that now he’s the one pinning Ted down on the bed.  He slips one thigh in between Ted’s and grinds his hips downward.  Ted is hard underneath his suit pants, the material much thinner than Booster’s jeans.  He has to bite his lip to muffle a sound of pleasure.  Ted is panting beneath him, squirming and sweating through his dress shirt.

“Tell me you have lube and condoms,” Booster says, tugging Ted’s tie loose with one finger and continuing to grind against him.

“I do,” Ted says, haltingly.  “But I mean, I’ve never--  Does it hurt?”

Again, Booster is struck by how sweet Ted is.  He pushes the thought away.

“Jesus, Ted,” he says, pulling the tie all the way off and starting on the shirt buttons.  “I wasn’t going to ask you to bottom.  I was kind of hoping you’d fuck me into the mattress.”

Ted goes still for one moment, shivering.

“Ah,” he finally says.  “Yes, then.  Yes, please.”  He scrambles out from underneath Booster and moves to the bedside table, pulling open a drawer.  He tosses Booster a bottle of lube, grabs a condom for himself and then trots over to the door and turns out the lights.

As Booster waits for his eyes to adjust, he can hear the sound of rustling clothing.  Ted must be stripping, he figures, so he shimmies out of his own pants and boxer-briefs.  Then, he can feel the bed dipping slightly as Ted crawls on top of him.

“Hey,” Booster says, reaching out to find Ted and pull his face close enough to kiss him.  Ted settles just above him, on his hands and knees.  Booster lets this kiss stay soft and sweet, and he can actually feel Ted breaking into a smile.

“Hey,” Ted echoes back.  “So, how do we do this?”

“First,” Booster says, popping open the lube and pouring a liberal amount onto his index and middle fingers, “I’m going to finger myself until I’m stretched out enough to get fucked.”

Ted moans in response and kisses Booster again, this time heavy with desire.  Booster sucks on Ted’s tongue, letting his hand drift down to tease himself with a practiced motion.  By the time he lets one finger slide slowly in, he’s already hard as a rock and beginning to drip precum.  He gently moves his finger, hitting just the right spot to make his back arch against the bed.

“Shit,” Ted whispers, pausing from his slow path of kisses down Booster’s neck.  Booster laughs shakily and repeats the motion.  It’s been a couple of months since he last hooked up with another guy, but he’s able to add a second finger relatively quickly, and then a third.  The lube is making obscene, slick noises, and Ted whines a little, bucking forward with his hips.  His erection brushes against Booster’s belly.

“Almost,” Booster promises.  “Almost there.”  Ted bends down and sucks at Booster’s ear again, this time much sloppier.  Booster really doesn’t mind.  Feeling Ted’s hot breath in his ear is actually more erotic than he expected, especially in the pitch darkness of the room.  He can’t actually remember the last time he fucked someone in the dark.

Finally, he pulls his fingers out and bites Ted’s neck gently to get him to stop.

“Ready?” Ted asks, shuffling off of Booster to give him room to move.

“Ready,” Booster says, handing the bottle of lube to Ted and rolling over to brace himself on his hands and knees.  “Just make sure you use a lot of lube, okay?”  He can hear the sound of Ted tearing open the condom wrapper mixed with his own pulse pounding in his ears.

“Jesus,” Ted says, suddenly.  “This lube is freezing.”  Booster chuckles.

Ted carefully grips Booster’s hips and lines himself up.  Booster can feel Ted’s cock pressing ever so slightly against his entrance.

“This isn’t going to hurt you, is it?” Ted asks, and Booster has to swallow down a petulant response.

“I promise you, it won’t,” Booster says.  “Just start off slow.”

“Okay,” Ted says.  He leans forward and then he’s easing into Booster, smooth as silk and slower than Booster’s ever experienced.

“Shit,” Booster hisses.  Ted’s not the biggest guy to ever fuck him, but he’s certainly not the smallest either.  Ted stops immediately, and it actually takes Booster a moment to realize why.  “I’m fine,” he says, trying not to sound too eager.  “It feels amazing.  You’re not hurting me.”  Ted resumes, sliding all the way inside Booster.  He pauses, running one hand up Booster’s back and shivering.  Booster can actually feel Ted’s cock pulsing inside him.  His own dick twitches in response.

“You’re so tight,” Ted murmurs.  Booster groans and pushes back against Ted, as if there would be any way for him to go deeper.

“Fuck me,” Booster pleads, and Ted slowly pulls back and then rocks forward, sending sparks of heat through Booster’s spine. 

“God,” Ted says, low and disbelieving.  Booster moans in agreement.  Ted repeats the motion, again and again.  Booster finds himself scrabbling at the sheets to find enough leverage to push back against him at every thrust.

“Right there,” he urges Ted.  “Fuck, that’s perfect.  Don’t stop.”

“Don’t think I can,” Ted laughs, picking up the pace just a little bit.  “You feel… incredible.”

Booster doesn’t have much left in his brain to devote to a response, so he lets his forehead come to rest on the mattress and snakes one hand down to touch himself: just a loose fist around his cock because he doesn’t want to cum too fast, but needs enough to intensify what he’s feeling.  Every time Ted brushes against his prostate, he sees stars.  He’s dimly aware that he’s making a lot of noise, each thrust pulling sounds out of him.  Whimpers, mewling, swear words.

Ted is much quieter, panting softly and occasionally making small noises of pleasure.  His grip on Booster’s hips is just on the right side of painful, though Booster somehow knows that if Ted was aware of that, he’d loosen his hands in an instant.

At one point, Ted tries to slow down a bit—not because he’s tired, but because he wants to tease Booster.  Booster can tell because Ted laughs at him a little when he protests.  In retaliation, Booster takes it upon himself to speed the pace back up, rocking backwards over and over, feeling his ass smack against Ted’s hipbones.  Ted’s laughter quickly turns to choked moaning.

Finally, it seems that he can’t take any more of this from Booster, and Ted tightens his grip on Booster and pounds into him faster and harder than ever.  The sensation is incredible and overwhelming, enough to make Booster forget to breathe.  Just when he’s positive he’s unable to stand much more, Ted shudders and climaxes.  Booster can feel Ted’s orgasm as he pulses inside of him, and he closes his fist a little tighter around himself and follows him over the edge.

They collapse in a heap on the bed, limbs all tangled together.  Ted manages to roll over and dispose of the condom, and then he’s burrowing under the covers.   Booster just lays on top of the blankets, feeling the sweat evaporating off his skin and his pulse gradually returning to normal.

“Fucking incredible,” Ted says after a moment, clearly halfway asleep.  Booster grins into the darkness.

“You’re welcome,” he says. 

Sometime later, though Booster can’t really be sure exactly how long, Ted begins to snore.  That’s Booster’s cue to leave, so he carefully slides off the bed and gropes around on the floor for his underwear and pants.

He slips out into the hallway, wanders until he finds the bathroom, and cleans himself up a bit.  Ted’s shower, he can’t help but notice, is one of those huge glass numbers with a little bench inside as if it were a sauna.

On his way to the living room, Booster stumbles across the coat closet, so he grabs his jacket and only just remembers to scoop his t-shirt off the floor on his way out.

All said, he’s out on the street and walking home in the brisk evening air within about five or ten minutes.

Nice guy, Booster finds himself thinking.  Almost a shame to never see him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long! Sexy stuff always takes me longer to write so I hope it turned out okay.   
> Don't worry, this fic ain't over yet. The boys will meet again.


	3. February

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i'm looking at my notes and i think this will maybe end up sitting at around 14 chapters or so????? buckle up, friends

By the next month, Booster’s already moved on and forgotten about the whole thing.  He sleeps around a lot, is the thing.  Not exactly once a week like clockwork, but more than twice a month for sure.  At a certain level, he’s stopped thinking about it altogether.  There are enough bars in the city that he can visit a different one practically every week and never run into a previous one-night stand. 

Mostly, it’s the easiest way to get sex without having to get emotionally attached.  Booster is really not looking to settle down in any fashion.  Life goes on.

He’s patrolling the museum one Friday night, when he pokes his head into one of the staff offices and sees that Trixie is still at work.

Booster really likes Trixie.  The first time he met her, she had looked him up and down and told him sternly that she had a wonderful cat at home and was not looking to be swept off her feet, thank you very much.  They got on swimmingly.

Booster runs into her quite a bit, despite working the night shift, because she’s the secretary for a very demanding executive on the museum board.  Trixie spends at least one night a week staying late and doing some ridiculous project or another.  This week it looks like she’s trying to disassemble a huge box of employee handbooks with a medieval looking contraption.

“I thought you just put those together two weeks ago,” Booster says, leaning in the doorway.  Trixie nods and nibbles on her thumbnail.

“I have to take them all apart,” she says, demonstrating by using the machine to pull apart the plastic spine of one handbook.  “Mr. Davis decided he didn’t like the cardstock quality of the covers we had printed.  Now I have to replace them all.”  She gestures to a smaller box on her desk that contains the new handbook covers.  Booster whistles.

“Want to take a break?” he asks her, waggling his flashlight.  “I can do some pretty cool shadow puppets with this thing.”

“Tempting,” Trixie says, smirking and stretching her arms over her head with a stiffness that betrays how long she’s been hunched over her work.  “I think I’d rather hear about your week, though.”

Trixie likes to say that she’s been living the single life vicariously through Booster.  When he has some kind of horror story or unbelievable text conversation, she’s always the first one to hear about it. 

Booster grins at her and sits on the edge of her desk.

“Okay, so,” he begins.  “I was at this joint on the South side.  Weird place.  The one with the chandelier made of melted down street signs?  Anyway, I’m sitting at the bar and—“

Booster’s story is interrupted by a burst of static from his walkie-talkie.

“Hold that thought,” he says to Trixie, fumbling to remove it from his belt.

The call is from whatever lazy asshole is stationed in front of the monitor screens tonight.  It seems there’s a suspicious figure loitering by the big glass doors at the entrance.

“I have to go,” Booster says to Trixie with a shrug.  “Duty calls.”

“I’m not missing this,” Trixie says, scooting away from her desk and following him down the hallway.  “This sounds exciting.”

“It’s probably just a homeless guy,” Booster responds, but his heart is beating just a little bit faster.  He can’t help but start to imagine different scenarios.  A gunman, someone running from the mafia, a celebrity begging for cover from the paparazzi… He’s all tense by the time they reach the front entrance, but when the source of the trouble comes into view—

“Oh,” Booster says, stopping short and causing Trixie to bump into him.  “Oh my god.”

“What?” Trixie says, peering out from behind him.

It’s Ted.  Ted is standing outside the museum, jumping up and down and waving at the security camera posted above the door.  He catches sight of Booster, clearly recognizing him.  He’s pointing at his face and mouthing ‘It’s me, Ted’, and Booster wants nothing more than to turn around and walk away.

“You remember last month?” Booster says, still not moving.  “When I had that one-night stand with the really rich workaholic who was into underground music?”

“Yes…?” Trixie says, clearly not understanding. 

“That’s him,” Booster says.  Ted, perhaps wondering why Booster isn’t coming over to the door, begins tapping on the glass.

“Oh my god,” Trixie says.

“I know,” Booster says.

“What do we do?” Trixie asks, as Ted begins to mime that he’s trapped in a glass box.

“I guess we let him in,” Booster says, slowly.

He walks over to the main entrance and unlocks the door.  Ted pushes his way in.  He’s not wearing a suit and tie like the last time Booster saw him.  Instead he’s got on a fluorescent green button-down shirt, a black vest, and slacks.  He’s holding a plastic bag, which he holds out to Booster.

“Hi,” Ted says, out of breath from his jumping and waving.  “You left your hoodie at my place.”

Booster numbly takes the bag from him and looks inside.  His Gotham Knights hoodie is shoved into it.

“Thanks,” he manages to say. 

“Well,” Trixie says, walking backwards and giving Booster a mischievous smile.  “I’ll just leave you two kids alone.  Those handbooks aren’t gonna disassemble and reassemble themselves.  See you later, Booster.”  She disappears around the corner, heels clacking on the marble floors of the lobby.  The sound of her footsteps fades away.  Ted is looking all around the entrance hall, admiring the carvings on the ceiling.

“How did you know I worked here?” Booster says, still very confused about what is happening.

“You said you worked the night shift at a museum,” Ted replies, as though it were obvious.

“I didn’t say which museum,” Booster says, brow furrowing.  “How did you know it was this one?”

“I didn’t,” Ted admits, running his hand through his hair.  “So I just… Tried all of them?”

“All of them,” Booster repeats.  “All of the museums in Metropolis?”

Ted turns a little pink and nods.  They stand there for a moment, staring at one another. 

“Listen,” Booster starts to say, at the exact time that Ted begins to speak.  After a few seconds of awkward apologizing and talking over one another, Ted motions for Booster to speak first.

“You’re… sweet,” Booster says.  “I mean, to track me down and bring me my hoodie.  I’m just really not interested in dating anyone right now?  That night was sort of a one time thing.”

Ted turns several shades pinker.

“You’re a great guy,” Booster continues, not sure what else to say.  “I’m sure you’ll find somebody.”  Ted groans and tilts his head backwards.

“No, no,” Ted says.  “I’m not— I didn’t try to find you so that I could ask you out.”

“Oh,” Booster says, trying not to be offended and failing.

“I just wanted to…” Ted pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes.  He carries on, not opening them.  “That night was fun and amazing, but it wasn’t just the sex.  I had fun because I think you’re funny and cool to be around, and I haven’t wanted to hang out with another person in a really long time.  I don’t want you to think that I invited you over because I wanted to hook-up.  I really didn’t.  I invited you over because I like you.  As a friend.  I want to be friends with you.”  He opens his eyes and looks at Booster for a reaction.

“Uh,” Booster says.  “Friends?  As in… you’re not going to ask me to have sex with you again?”

“You said it was a one time thing,” Ted says.  “I’m cool with that.”

Booster stares at Ted.

“What would we do?” He finally says, narrowing his eyes.  Ted shrugs.

“Watch movies? Drink beer.  Play video games,” he says.  “You know.  Friend stuff.”

Booster opens his mouth to let Ted down gently, but instead the word “okay” falls out.  Ted grins at him, and suddenly it’s like Booster’s in that booth at the bar again, wondering where the hell his life is going.

“Really?” Ted says, digging into his pocket and pulling out his phone.  “That’s awesome, man.  Here, let’s trade numbers.  I was thinking we could meetup sometime this weekend.”

“Okay,” Booster says again, and then he’s handing his phone over.  In a few quick seconds, they’ve swapped numbers.

“Cool,” Ted says, stuffing his phone in his back pocket.  “So I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah,” Booster says.  He’s stunned to find that he’s actually looking forward to seeing Ted again.  “Yeah, just shoot me a text.”

“Will do,” Ted chirps, giving Booster a quick little salute, and then he turns around and heads out the door.

Booster stays in the entrance hall for a few more minutes before wandering back to the office where Trixie is working.  She looks up from her desk and waggles her eyebrows.

“Well?” Trixie says, propping her chin in her hand.

“He asked me for my number,” Booster says.  “But he said that he just wants to be friends?”

“What did you say?” Trixie asks.

“I said okay,” Booster says, leaning against the doorway.  “I don’t really know why.”

Trixie rolls her eyes.

“Don’t think about it too hard,” she says, fitting another handbook into her machine.  “You could use a friend.”

“You’re a friend,” Booster protests, but truthfully, Trixie is a ‘work friend’.  He never sees her outside of the museum, and he gets the impression that both of them are more comfortable that way.

“Yeah,” Trixie says, “But you’re sure as hell not getting my number.”

Booster grumbles and walks away to continue his patrol.  The rest of the night passes without any further incident, and Booster manages to mostly forget the entire affair.

By Sunday morning, when he wakes up to a poop-emoji-filled text from Ted, the whole thing seems simple enough.

Ted is funny, nice, smart, and rich.  Booster probably needs a friend, and Ted is offering.

Why the hell not?


	4. March

Somehow, the weirdest thing about being friends with Ted is how… not weird it all is?

It should be.  Booster is relatively certain that most people don’t generally become friends this way for a reason.  And yet, somehow, everything seems to work anyway.

The first time he hangs out with Ted, they end up spending the whole day together.  Not intentionally, just… they keep thinking of new things to do or watch.  Ted has all those recordings of underground shows that he’s been to, Booster has a Netflix queue full of terrible B-Movies, and both of them have a laundry list of places in the city that they want to explore.

Somewhere around the third hangout (friend-date?),  Booster finds himself sitting in the basement of a stripmall in Metropolis Chinatown, eating what has to be the best sushi he’s ever had and watching Ted struggle to unbox a bootleg Scooby-Doo playset he bought upstairs.

“Look at this monstrosity,” Ted says solemnly, finally managing to free an off-model Scooby with white fur and drooping eyes.  “This was so worth twenty bucks.”  He dives back into the packaging and gets to work on removing the van labeled “MISSY MACHINE”. 

“So, not to be weird or anything,” Booster says, eating another piece of sushi with some sort of mysterious brown vegetable that tastes deceptively delicious.  “But I kind of think we’re maybe best friends.”

“Why would that be weird?” Ted asks and proceeds to stab himself viciously on one of the metal twist-ties.

And, see, the thing is, it should be weird.  It’s only the third time he’s really hung out with Ted, only the fifth time he’s ever been around him at all, not to mention that the first and second times were an ill-thought-out hookup and a strange half-apology half-rejection, respectively.

But sitting there, watching Ted curse and blot the blood off his thumb with a paper napkin, it’s somehow hard to feel like anything is strange at all.

About a week later, he and Ted are stretched out in Ted’s living room, watching what has to be around the fourth or fifth hour of a Japanese Horror movie marathon when Ted’s cellphone breaks into a loud rendition of the Donkey Kong Rap.

Booster pauses the movie, raising one eyebrow, while Ted scrambles to answer his phone.

“Hello?” Ted says.  “Oh, hi, Guy.  What’s going on?”  He takes a moment to glare at Booster, who is murmuring the rest of the words to the DK rap.

“Who’s Guy?” Booster says in a stage-whisper.  Ted ignores him.

“You’re with who?  Oh, tell them I said hi.”  Ted frowns, rocks forward a little.  “Tonight?  I dunno.  I’m kind of… with someone right now.”

Whoever Guy is, he apparently makes a pretty lewd comment in response, because Ted turns pink and sputters for a moment.

“No, not like that, it’s—“

Booster rolls his eyes and performs a pretty impressive dive to steal the phone from Ted, landing on the floor next to the sofa.

“Hi, this is Booster.  Ted’s new best friend.  Who is this?”  Booster drawls, looking up at Ted’s panicked face and snickering.

“Guy Gardner,” replies a deep, gravelly voice.  “Would you please tell Ted to get his sorry ass out of his apartment and over to my place?  We’re in the middle of band practice, and I want his opinion on some sound mixing issues.”

Booster puts one hand over the phone and yelps indignantly to Ted, “You never told me you knew Guy Gardner!”

There is a brief scuffle in which Ted launches himself off the couch to wrestle the phone away from Booster. 

“Guy?” Ted pants into the receiver, sitting firmly on top of Booster’s chest and slapping away his hands as he tries to take the cellphone back.  “I’m back.  Listen, I’d love to come over, but Booster’s not exactly into the music scene.  It’d be rude to drag him along with me to—“

“Guy, I loved your solo mixtape!” Booster yells, loud enough to be heard on the other end of the line.  “People who think  _ Warrior _ is shit are wrong.  It was a great stealth parody album of metal core!  The Lanterns were crazy to kick you out of the band, you should—“

“Shut up,” Ted hisses, but Booster can hear Guy’s voice rumbling on the other end.  “Okay,” Ted says wearily.  “Okay.  We’ll head over.  I’ll see you soon.”

He hangs up the phone and rolls off of Booster, choosing instead to lie facedown in the carpet.

“Best friends tell each other when they know former members of the Lanterns,” Booster says, disapprovingly.

“Best friends cover for each other when they’re lying to get out of something,” Ted mumbles.  “And Guy said to tell you that  _ Warrior _ wasn’t a parody.”

“He’s joking, right?” Booster asks, but Ted only groans.

\-------

He isn’t joking.

His “place” is a surprisingly normal, nice looking house in the suburbs, and he actually holds band practice in his garage.  Ted, who had hardly said a word during the drive over, wearily pulls the garage door up by the handle at the bottom and ushers Booster inside before closing it behind the two of them.

Guy is bickering in the corner with a tall, dark-skinned woman with brilliant green hair, saying something about “resonance” and “feeling it in your chest”.  He barely acknowledges Ted with a wave of one hand, and Ted slouches off to the corner to put on a set of headphones and start fiddling with some dials and mixers.  Booster finds a shabby sofa off to one side and plops down next to a woman with sleek white hair and eyeliner that could kill a man from ten paces away.

“Hi,” the woman next to him says, smiling at him gently.  “I’m Tora.”

“Booster,” he manages to reply, as the green-haired woman stomps her foot and points at an amp emphatically, all the while spewing rapid, angry sounding Portugese.  “Is this…. normal?”

“I don’t understand you when you don’t speak English,” Guy bellows, and the woman throws her hands up and continues, now looking up at the off-yellow garage lights as though God will reach through them and help her.

“Yes,” Tora says, but her tone is mild and fond.  “Don’t worry.  It’ll blow over in a few minutes, and then we can get back to playing.”  Ted, clearly used to this, has his back turned to the whole scene.

The garage is decorated pretty sparsely, but old Lanterns posters are hung here and there, along with some Warrior merch.  The set-up is pretty utilitarian.  It kind of looks like the space an actual high-school garage band would practice in, aside from the clearly expensive equipment.

“It’s so nice to see Ted,” Tora says, shaking her head and sending her silky, asymmetrical hair fluttering.  “I was starting to worry that he’d never leave the house.”

“Yeah,” Booster says, with a grin, “I think he’s in much better shape than he was when I found him.”  Ted turns from his work to observe the arguing couple and catches Booster’s eye before doing pulling a ‘yeesh’ face.  Booster snorts.

“You seem good for him,” Tora says.  Booster shrugs, not sure how to respond to that.  “How did you two meet?”

“At a bar,” Booster says, suddenly very aware that the conversation is making it sound like he and Ted are dating.  “I mean, we’re not--  We’re just friends.”

Tora just looks at Booster, confused.

“What else would you be?” She says, tilting her head. 

“Never mind,” Booster mutters, wishing he could just sink into the couch cushions and disappear from existence.

Ted gets up from his work and moves over to Guy, gesturing that he wants him to take a listen.

Guy follows him over the corner and puts the headphones on.  The woman with green hair comes over to the couch and flops down on top of Tora’s lap, stretching out so that her feet are resting on Booster’s knees and her head is almost tilting off the arm of the sofa. 

She says nothing, clearly still frustrated about her earlier argument, and Tora takes it upon herself to introduce them.

“Bea, this is Ted’s friend Booster.  Booster, this is Beatriz.  She’s our drummer.”

“Hi,” Booster says, giving a little wave.  He feels like he’s in junior high, introducing himself to the entire class.  “Nice to meet you.”

Bea raises her head just enough to give Booster an appraising glance.

“Hmm,” she says.  “Interesting.”

Guy takes the headphones off and claps Ted on the shoulder.

“You’re a genius, Ted,” he says, steering them both over to the couch.  “I’m glad somebody managed to talk you out of your apartment for once.”

Booster scrambles to his feet. 

“Hi,” he says, trying his best to contain his excitement.  “I’m Booster.”  Guy gives him an extremely firm handshake.

Guy Gardner is somehow both bigger and smaller in person.  On stage, he comes across as much taller, so it’s weird to suddenly be looking slightly down at him.  Face to face, he’s also a lot wider and thick with muscle.  The smirking face and bright red hair, however, are exactly the same.

“Booster, huh?” Guys says.  “Did your parents think they were having a puppy instead of a son?”

“Guy—“ Ted starts to say, but Booster shrugs and shoves his hands into his pockets.

“It’s just a nickname.  My sister calls me Mike, but I’m Booster to everyone else,” he explains.  Ted furrows his brow, and Booster changes the subject.  “Ted never told me he knew a rockstar.”

“Well,” Guy says, looking pleased.  “I’m sure Mr. CEO has better things to do these days than hang around with some old college friends.”

“Like meet cute guys and neglect to inform his very good friends,” Bea says, eyeing Booster from the sofa with an almost predatory smile.  “You should take Ted to the gym, Booster.  You clearly work out.”

“Thank you,” Booster replies, reflexively.

“Forget Bea,” Tora says, rolling her eyes.  “Do you have any single lady friends for Ted, Booster?  We keep telling him to get back on the dating horse.”

“Wow, we are saying a lot of words,” Ted cuts in, nervous.  “Can we not?  I thought I was here to listen to you guys rehearse.”

“Alright, alright,” Bea says, spreading her hands.  “Touchy.”

“Okay, you two,” Guy booms to the women on the couch.  “Let’s take it from the top.”

Bea and Tora haul themselves to their feet, stretch, and head over to their instruments.  Tora slings a huge white bass guitar on, while Guy grabs his electric guitar.  Bea perches behind a drum kit and cracks her knuckles.

Ted pulls Booster back onto the sofa and grins at him.

The music is…. Well, the music is loud.  It’s been a while since Booster’s last been to a show, and for a moment he’s almost alarmed by the way the bass jumps in his chest. As a band, the three of them are unpolished; Bea gets lost in her own rhythms, and Tora is a bit overly cautious with her own parts, but Guy actually fits in quite nicely between them.  They have a ways to go, but there’s definitely something there.

Booster can still feel the reverberations in his chest on the drive back to Ted’s place.

“They seem nice,” he says, fiddling with the air vents so that he’s not getting warm air blasted into his eyeballs.

“I can’t believe I didn’t know that your name isn’t actually Booster,” Ted says in mock horror.  “I actually thought that your parents named you that.  And you have a sister?”

“A twin sister,” Booster says, leaning back in his seat.  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that you were a CEO.  You said you were in management!”

“Technically true,” Ted says defensively.  “I am in management.  Just…. really high up management.  And it’s not like Kord Industries is all that, anyway.  Not with me running it.”

“You really didn’t think it was relevant?” Booster demands.  “I mean, we’ve known each other how long?”

There’s a brief pause as both of them calculate exactly how long it’s been.  For a moment, Booster debates phrasing the amount of time in weeks to make it sound a little more impressive.

Ted breaks the silence with a snort.  And then a chuckle.  And soon he and Booster are both laughing aloud together.

“Okay, point taken,” Booster says, propping his feet up on the dash.  “It only feels like we’ve been best friends for like… forever.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Ted says, turning to smile fondly at Booster.

“Keep your eyes on the road, Mr. CEO,” Booster laughs.

“Will do, Mike.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god, i'm really really sorry this one took me so long. this chapter was just really hard to write, for some godforsaken reason.  
> thanks to everyone for hanging in there and waiting. not a lot happens this chapter, but things should start kicking up soon. :)


	5. May

A few months later, Booster decides that really?  The only downside to being friends with Ted is that it’s seriously cutting into his sex-life.  Because he works nights, he only gets to hang out with Ted on the weekends, and that means not having time for barhopping like he used to.  No barhopping means no picking up strangers, and that essentially means no sex at all.

At first, Booster just shrugs it off.  Sex is fun, but being with Ted is more fun.  That lasts about a month.  Then he’s reasoning with himself that porn will keep him satisfied enough.  That also proves to be untrue.  Booster is, unfortunately, pretty accustomed to getting sex on a regular basis.  It’s beginning to be a problem.

One night, when Ted lets Booster into his apartment, his hair is still damp from the shower.  Booster just laughs and tugs on one of Ted’s dripping curls and makes a joke about Ted smelling like wet dog.  Truthfully, that’s the first time that the idea strikes him, but he shoves it down and forgets about it.

Almost a month later, the thought comes back when he’s wrestling with Ted for the remote.  He thinks about it the whole walk home, trying to tell himself that it’s a bad idea.

By the third time, Booster is frankly sort of resigned to the fact that he has terrible impulse control combined with a penchant for unhealthy life choices.  He decides to go for it.

The two of them are playing Mario Kart.  Ted is upside down on the sofa, legs dangling off the back, head stretched awkwardly off the cushions.  This is meant to serve as a handicap.  It’s not working.

Booster falls off Rainbow Road for the fiftieth time and resigns himself to the fate of coming in last place yet again.  He glances at Ted, who is just slightly sticking his tongue out in concentration.

“So, a hypothetical for you,” Booster says, overly casual.  He’s always considered himself to have an excellent poker face, but there’s just something about Ted.  From day one, it’s been hard to lie to him; even the most familiar lies that used to just fall off his tongue don’t seem to come out properly.

“Mmm?” Ted responds, releasing three green shells in quick succession.

“Would you ever do agree to like…. A friends-with-benefits kind of thing?”  Booster keeps his eyes focused on the game, afraid to look over.

“I guess so?” Ted says.  “I mean, what’s the difference between that and casual sex?”

“Well, casual sex usually isn’t like… sex with the same person over and over,” Booster says.  “Friends-with-benefits is when you’re friends with someone, and you’re definitely not dating, but you still have sex.”

“What, like on a schedule?”

“No, Ted.”  Booster resists the urge to look over, because he can hear in Ted’s voice that he’s smiling.  He’s just trying to give Booster a hard time.  “Not on a schedule.  You’d just have sex when you want.  If you want.”

“So it would be good sex, right?” Ted asks, pulling across the finish line.  “I mean, it would have to be.”

“Yes,” Booster confirms, rolling his eyes.  “The sex would be good.”

“Then I don’t really get it,” Ted says.  “It sounds like there are zero drawbacks to this.  Why wouldn’t I agree to it?”

“Some people think that’s it’s not really possible to do,” Booster says slowly, trying to put his words together carefully.  He doesn’t want to lie, but he also wants to sell this thing to Ted. 

“Not possible?” Ted asks, resting his controller on his stomach as he waits for Booster to catch up.

“Like, they think that you can’t have sex with someone without it getting complicated and emotional,” Booster explains.  He finally makes it to the finish line.  Last place, as expected.

“Well, that’s blatantly not true,” Ted says, queuing up another race.  “I mean, we had sex, and we’re fine.  Right?”  He shoots Booster a big grin and punches him on the leg.

“Yeah.  Right!” Booster says in relief.  “Right.  Exactly.”

“Watch me double lap you on this next course,” Ted says.

Infuriatingly enough, he does, making it to the finish line so far ahead of Booster that it’s not even worth finishing the race.

Ted laughs while Booster throws his controller to the floor in disgust.

“I hate you,” he growls, but Ted just grins up at him.

“Don’t be mad because I have mad skills,” he says.  Booster snorts.

“Mad skills?” He repeats, leaning over Ted.  “What are you, twelve?”

Ted just laughs again, and his cheeks are flushed with happiness, and his eyes are bright, and his hair is tousled, falling away from his forehead in a way that’s just—

Booster leans in and kisses him.

Softly at first, but then Ted makes a startled noise and opens his mouth, and all at once Booster can feel how long it’s been since he last had  _ fun _ like this.  He pushes further in, hungry.  His heart is thumping in his chest.  Ted smells familiar and comfortable, like detergent and just a hint of sweat, and his mouth tastes warm and inviting.

He’s so thoroughly enjoying himself that it’s honestly disorienting when Ted pushes him away.

“What the fuck?” Ted says, staring at Booster, and Booster barely has the sense to register that Ted doesn’t sound angry or disgusted.  Just… surprised?  Confused?

“Um,” Booster says, intelligently.  He can feel his pulse throbbing in his ears.  His face suddenly  feels way too hot.

“Booster,” Ted says, his eyes narrowing.  “What was that?”

“Me kissing you?” Booster manages to say. 

“Why?” Ted asks, straightening up and moving so that he’s sitting cross-legged on sofa, facing Booster.

“We were literally just talking about this,” Booster says.  “The… friends-with-benefits thing.”

“You said that was hypothetical!” Ted yelps.  “Hypothetical means imaginary!  I didn’t think you were talking about us!”

“Everybody knows that hypothetical is just a code word for talking about yourself, Ted!” Booster snaps, crossing his arms.

“Not for scientists!” Ted says, bewildered.

“Jesus, this was such a bad idea,” Booster groans.  “Forget it.  Never mind.  This never happened, okay?”

“Stop,” Ted says, covering his eyes and holding out one hand.  “Let me just… think for a second.”

“There’s nothing to think about,” Booster grumbles, but he slumps on the sofa and lets Ted “think”.  Mario Kart continues to play overly cheerful music.

“This might not actually be the worst idea in the world,” Ted says, finally.  Booster refuses to get his hopes up and fails immediately.

“Yeah?”

“I mean… I like sex.  You like sex.”  Ted has this look on his face like he’s doing a complicated math problem in his head.  “We had sex together, and we both liked that.”

“These are all true statements,” Booster agrees.

“So, you’re just proposing that… we use each other for sex?  Out of convenience?”  Ted asks.

“That sounds gross,” Booster says, frowning.  “More like… we’d be doing each other a solid.  Whenever we… need a solid.”

They both snicker a little at that one.

“And then if one of us starts dating somebody?” Ted says, relaxing a little bit more.  “Do we just… stop?”

“We just stop,” Booster agrees.  “If either of us wants to stop, we stop.  No questions asked.  No strings, no whatever.”

“And I don’t have to buy you dinner or flowers,” Ted says.  “Or remember any anniversaries, or apologize for looking at a waitress for too long?”

“Odds are we’ll _ both _ be looking at that waitress for too long,” Booster says, laughing.  “You might be overthinking this a little bit.  It’s basically like… nothing changes, except that if we want to make out or blow each other, we can.”

“Okay,” Ted says.

“Okay?”

“Yeah.  Okay.  I’m… I’m okay with that.  I mean, are you okay with that?”

“I think it’s been established that I am more than okay with that,” Booster says, smiling. 

And so then, Ted picks up his controller and they play a few more races.  When Booster’s tired of having his ass kicked, they switch to Netflix.  About midway through the second episode of Frasier, Booster turns and looks at Ted, grins, and crawls across the sofa to straddle his lap.

“If you make a Netflix and chill joke, I will push you off this couch, so help me God,” Ted says solemnly. Booster actually does have to take a second to weigh the consequences.  Meanwhile, Ted gropes blindly for the remote and pauses the episode.

“So,” Booster says.  Ted blinks back at him.

Booster kisses Ted, lets his hands creep up to tangle with his hair.  Ted makes this quiet little sound, a happy sound, and Booster can’t quite stop himself from melting further into the kiss.

It’s surreal.  For the first time in years, Booster’s not kissing someone with the intention of going straight into sex.  He’s making out with Ted, not because he’s trying to get off, but just because it feels good.  He knows Ted.  He knows his favorite color and his bad habits.  He knows what his favorite flavor of gum is.  Somewhere in the back of his head, he’s remembering that—right, it does actually feel even better when you’re kissing someone you genuinely know and care about.

Ted sucks Booster’s lower lip into his mouth, and suddenly Booster’s brain doesn’t really have the space to be introspective anymore.

He maps out Ted’s mouth with his tongue, finding the spot on the roof of his mouth that makes him break away from the kiss to laugh, learning exactly what amount of pressure to use when nibbling on his lip to make Ted lose his breath.  In return, Ted’s hands are wandering across Booster’s upper body, squeezing a bicep here, brushing against his abdominals there.

It’s almost lazy and experimental, which are words that Booster would have once used in a dismissive sort of way.  But for once, there’s no hurry.  Booster’s not some horny teenager, desperate to get off before his mom gets home.  He’s not blowing someone in a club bathroom or using someone for one night of relief.

Ted is here right now, and Ted will still be here tomorrow.  And the day after that.  And the week after that. 

In fact, he’s so into the idea of taking it slow that it honestly surprises him when Ted’s hand brushes against the front of his jeans.

“Can I touch you?”  Ted murmurs, and fuck, if Booster’s cock wasn’t paying attention before, it sure as hell is now.

Booster nods, and sits back so that Ted can unzip his fly and tug his pants down to his thighs.  Ted brushes his hand against the spot where Booster is straining against his boxer briefs, and Booster shivers, leaning forward again and resting his head on the back of the couch.   

“I don’t know how you like it,” Ted says, dipping his hand into Booster’s underwear and gently circling his fist around his cock.

“Tighter,” Booster sighs.  “Kind of rough, actually.”

“Masochist,” Ted chuckles, and Booster doesn’t actually have a witty comeback to that because  _ busted. _

Ted does tighten his grip though, and Booster almost loses his breath.  It’s been way too long. 

“Slow down a little,” he says, pushing himself back up so that he can kiss Ted again.  Ted grins into his mouth, barely slowing down the pace at all.  That mischievous streak is definitely going to be a problem in the future.

“What, you’re worried that I’m going to make you cum already?” Ted says, clearly meaning to be a lighthearted tease, but it’s just enough to hit Booster’s dirty talk buttons and then he is actually cumming, shuddering on top of Ted and coating the inside of his underwear.

“Oh,” is all Ted says, pulling his hand gingerly out of Booster’s boxer-briefs.

“Fuck you,” Booster says wearily, sliding off Ted’s lap and onto the floor.  

“Sorry,” Ted starts to say, but Booster laughs and shakes his head.

“It’s fine,” he says.  “You want anything?”  He gestures to Ted’s lap.

“I’m good for now,” Ted says.  “Maybe later.”

Booster heads straight for the bathroom to clean up.  In the mirror, his hair is mussed and his cheeks are pink.  He looks… happy. 

When he gets back out to the couch, Ted is gnawing on cold leftover pepperoni pizza.  The box is sitting on the floor.  Booster kneels down, grabs a slice, and flops down next to him.

“Question: Do you want to watch Zombeavers?” Ted asks.

“Hell yes,” Booster responds.

The night goes on.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and we are finally FINALLY heading into the actual description of this fic  
> thank u all for waiting  
> <3


	6. June

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there friends!  
> Good news and bad news.  
> The good news is that I'm taking part in the boostle giftathon this year! So you can expect a one-shot piece out in the near future!  
> The bad news is that I will of course have to finish that all up before I start on the next chapter of this fic, so my slow pace will be even slower than normal.  
> Thank you for following this fic. The comments honestly make my day. I smile like a dummy for hours.  
> See you on the flip side!

In order for this thing to really work properly, Booster establishes a few rules.  Not… verbally, or through writing.  It’s technically only an unofficial list that he keeps in his own head. 

But it still works.

For example, Booster doesn’t sleep over at Ted’s.  Ever.  This is one of those things that is actually easier to accomplish than expected, because Ted is usually out like a light after sex.  There’s never any kind of awkward “you should stay” conversations, just the sound of snoring to escort Booster from the apartment.  Booster’s actually really starting to enjoy the walks home.  He gets a lot of thinking done, and it’s not like he’s averse to staying up late, what with his night shifts at the museum. 

They always get separate bills when they go out to eat.  If they order take-out, Booster usually foots the bill, because Ted always drives them everywhere, so that’s just paying him back for the gas expenses. 

Booster doesn’t ask Ted about his ex, and Ted doesn’t ask why they’ve never hung out at Booster’s apartment.

Booster’s pretty sure that Ted hasn’t told his friends about the change in their relationship, but he figure’s that’s Ted’s prerogative.

Trixie, on the other hand, is well-informed.

“You seem different,” she tells Booster one night, taking a break from filing to turn and give him a familiar smile.  Booster grins back.

“Do I?”

“Definitely,” Trixie says.  “Don’t get me wrong, I miss the crazy stories about your misadventures in hooking up, but—This thing you have going on with Ted has changed you.”

“In a good way?” Booster laughs, running a hand through his hair.

“See?” Trixie says and points at Booster with one purple fingernail.  “If I had said that a few months ago, you would have freaked out on me _.  What does that mean?  Changed how?  Do you think I need to stop? _  But now you’re just… more relaxed.”  She squints at him, considering.  “You’re happier, maybe.”

Booster hums noncommittally and sits down on the edge of Trixie’s desk.

“I dunno,” he shrugs.  “I guess things are just kind of stable for me nowadays.  In comparison, it kind of makes hooking up seem like a pain in the neck.”

Trixie wrinkles her nose, and now it’s Booster’s turn to point.

“Ah-ha!”  He says, accusing.  “That’s the face you make when you don’t understand something.  There’s something about this that you don’t trust.”

“No,” Trixie says, a little too quickly.  She tries to hide her face as she looks down at her filing.  “Don’t be stupid.”

“I can read you like a book,” Booster says, smirking.  “What’s the problem, Trix?  Is it just too good to be true or something?  It’s okay to admit that you’re jealous.”

Trixie hesitates, fingers gently plucking at the file labels for a moment.

“I don’t see the appeal,” she says, finally.  She looks up at Booster and frowns.  “I mean... I saw Ted.  He seems nice, but I just don’t get it.”

“What?” Booster says, legitimately taken aback.  “What’s not to get?”

“I always sort of figured that the people you hooked up with were...” Trixie trails off and waves her hand a little.  “More attractive?”

Booster gapes at her.

“I mean, you look like a movie star,” Trixie says, defensive.  “It’s not unreasonable to assume that you limited yourself to a dating pool of equally beautiful people.”

Mild outrage on Ted’s behalf briefly grapples with narcissism in Booster’s head.

“I have to go do a loop of the museum,” he says faintly.  “I’ll be back later.  We’ll talk about this in like, twenty minutes.”

He spends the entire time processing and returns with a monologue prepared.

“Okay, first of all,” Booster says, striding quickly over to Trixie’s desk and holding up one finger.  “Yes, I am incredibly attractive.  Thank you.”

Trixie snorts.

“Secondly,” Booster continues sternly, “I happen to think that the people I hook up with are, as a matter of fact, equally as ‘beautiful’ as I am.  However,” he continues, “upon reflection, I will admit that Ted is handsome in a different way.  Not less attractive, not ‘below my standards’ or whatever you want to call it.  But he is different.”

“He looks like he dresses himself in the dark,” Trixie says flatly.

“He doesn’t allow standard views of fashion to interfere with the expression of his personality,” Booster counters.

“He’s short and doughy around the edges,” says Trixie.

“I’m 6’5’’. Practically everyone is short to me.  And he is not ‘doughy’.”

Trixie raises her eyebrows and her mouth becomes one long line.

“Okay, so he’s a little doughy,” Booster says, exasperated.  “So what?  I like it.  He’s soft all over.”  He scowls.  “Why are we even having this argument?  I don’t have to justify anything to you.”

“Of course you don’t,” Trixie says with a sigh.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to insult you.  I’m happy that you’re happy.”

“Thank you,” Booster says.  “Let’s change the subject.  Please tell me a delightful story about your cat.”

But he can’t stop thinking about the conversation, all the way home and through the night.  It’s the first thing in his head as he drinks his morning coffee.

The entire walk to Ted’s house that afternoon is consumed with anxiety.  Is Trixie right?  What if Ted opens the door and suddenly Booster won’t see him the same way?  What kind of terrible conversation would that lead to?   _ Hey, I suddenly realized that, despite all the great sex we have, I actually don’t think you’re attractive? _  Would that make Booster a terrible person?

He actually stands in front of Ted’s door for a solid minute, just freaking out.

When he finally opens the door and heads inside, he finds Ted in the kitchen.  He’s loading the dishwasher, but he hears Booster coming and turns to greet him.

“Hey,” Ted says, with an easy smile, and relief hits Booster like a semi-truck.  Ted is… Ted is definitely good looking.  His dimples, and his freckles, and…  Booster must be making a face because Ted tilts his head curiously.  “Something up?”

“No,” Booster says, laughing.  “No, I just—Trixie said something last night about how she thought you weren’t attractive or something, and I don’t get it at all.”

Ted frowns at that and closes the dishwasher door.

“Okay?” He says, but he’s not laughing.  Booster really wishes he was laughing: for some sign that he also thinks it’s a ridiculous statement.

In the awkwardness, Booster changes the subject.

“So, what do you want to do today?”

“Well, I thought maybe we could head downtown and check out that new arcade that opened up,” Ted says, leaning against the counter.  “It’s supposed to be pretty cool.  They have a bar and everything.”

“Okay,” Booster agrees.  “Works for me.  Hope you’re ready to get your ass kicked in Street Fighter.”  Ted laughs.

“I do have to go take a shower real quick,” Ted adds, a little apologetic.  “I just got off of work, and I pulled another all-nighter with R&D.”

“Nerd,” Booster teases.

“Yeah, yeah,” Ted says, waving his hands dismissively as he heads back towards the bathroom.  “Just grab a beer from the fridge if you want.”

Booster does so and wanders off to the living room.  He takes a few sips of beer, mind still whirling a mile a minute.

Down the hall, he can hear the shower start up.

The thing is, now that he thinks about it?  There’s a lot of evidence that points towards Ted having body insecurities.  That first night, for example, when Ted made sure to turn the light off before sex— before he even undressed.

Booster tries to think of the last time he and Ted had sex with the light on.  There have been blowjobs, handjobs, grinding; but those all happened with some amount of clothing on.  Sex, fully undressed, without the cover of darkness…  Booster can’t actually think of an example.

The more he ruminates on this, the angrier he gets, until suddenly he finds himself striding down the hallway and towards the bathroom.

Ted, surprisingly, has left the door unlocked, and Booster slips inside.

Ted stops humming long enough to ask “Booster? Is that you?” before Booster has shucked off his clothes and joined him in the shower.

Ted, looking like a frightened alley cat out in the rain, clutches a loofah to his chest.  Booster backs him up against the wall of the shower and kisses him.

In the back of his head, Booster has a thousand things he wants to say to Ted.   _ You’re beautiful.  It makes me so fucking angry that you would ever think you’re not attractive.  You don’t have anything to hide from me.  I’m here because I want to be.    _ He can’t say any of them, so instead he tries to show Ted what he’s feeling.  He pours his thoughts into each kiss, despite knowing that he’s probably coming off more aggressive than caring.

Ted kisses back, tentatively at first and then ultimately yielding to Booster’s insistence.  His hands come to rest on either side of Booster’s ribcage, apparently not sure whether to caress him or just hold on for dear life.  The loofah must be lying somewhere on the tile, forgotten.

Booster can’t keep his own hands still.  It’s strange, because Ted feels achingly familiar under his fingers, and yet this is the first time he’s really seeing his body.  He has to explore every inch of Ted, rediscover him. 

Initially, Ted is tense and shy, but he slowly becomes pliable under Booster’s hands.  He almost whimpers when Booster’s hand brushes his erection, and Booster loses whatever patience he had remaining. 

“Shh,” he says gently, pushing Ted away from the stream of water and kneeling in front of him.  Ted looks down at him with wide eyes, his pupils dilated and his skin pink from the hot water.

Booster takes Ted in his mouth, not looking away for a second.   Ted actually does whimper at that.

Booster swallows him down, fighting the urge to let his eyes flutter shut this time.  He lets one hand creep down to jack himself off, the other still roaming across Ted’s body—cupping his ass, gripping his sturdy thighs, squeezing his balls.

Ted shudders all over, fingers combing through Booster’s hair and massaging his scalp.  Booster hums with approval, causing Ted’s fingers to spasm just a little bit more in response.

“Holy shit,” Ted groans.  “You feel so good, Boost.  I can’t.”

Booster pulls back to take a deep breath, licks Ted slowly from base of the shaft to head.  He opens his mouth wide, sticking his tongue out and letting Ted’s cock just rest at the entrance of his mouth.  He continues to look up at Ted until he gets the message.

“Oh, fuck yes,” Ted murmurs, getting a firmer grip on Booster’s hair.  It’s not enough to cause pain; it immediately makes Booster feel just the right amount of helpless.  Ted angles his hips and pushes his cock into Booster’s mouth.  His pace is almost glacial at first, but then the speed picks up, and soon Booster is rocking back and forth with the motion.  His own hand is keeping pace, bringing him closer and closer to the edge.

Finally, Booster is unable to hold back.  He climaxes, dimly aware that he’s moaning,  For one beautiful moment, everything seems far away and floating.  Then, he’s back, still getting face-fucked, jaw aching.  He now has both hands free to use to brace himself against Ted’s thighs. 

Ted swears lowly, and then there’s that split-second salty taste to warn him before Ted is coming with a few last shallow thrusts.

Booster rests his head against Ted’s thigh and just breathes.  After he’s caught his breath, he somehow manages to stagger to his feet with Ted’s help, and they rinse each other off without a word.

When Ted reaches for a bottle of shampoo, clearly meaning to finish his shower, Booster slips out, grabbing a towel from the cabinet and his clothes as he goes.  He gets dressed in the hallway, hair still dripping.

His beer is still cold where he left it on the coffee table.


	7. July

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Thanks for hanging in there through the holiday season. I actually ended up posting not one, but three new fics the last couple of months, so check that out if you're interested! Big shoutout to the Boostle Giftathon!!!! Anyway, this is actually the last chapter before things get a little bumpy plotwise, so bear with me! -3-

“I’m just saying,” Guy announces from the back seat, “that the Monkey House is literally the best part of the whole goddamn zoo, and if you can’t see why, then you’re an idiot.”

“You’re insane,” Bea snaps.

Booster leans his forehead against the window of the passenger seat and holds in the world’s heaviest sigh.  Ted shoots him a sympathetic glance from behind the steering wheel.

“Gorillas are kind of majestic,” Tora says.  “I think I get where he’s coming from.”

“Gorillas are beast,” Guy says.  “End of the fucking discussion.  We are going to the Monkey House.”

“I would literally rather be eaten alive by the petting zoo goats,” Bea says flatly.

“I’m looking forward to the Bug House, personally,” Ted chirps.

“Wait, I think I’ve actually found something worse than the Monkey House,” Bea replies, wrinkling her nose.  “Sign me up for Primate Village, Guy.  Anything other than the Creepy-Crawley Hut.”

Booster closes his eyes and tries desperately to remind himself why he agreed to come.  Partially out of curiosity, because the Metropolis Zoo is guaranteed to be drastically different from the Gotham Zoo.  Mostly because the air conditioning in his apartment stopped working two weeks ago, and almost anything is better than boiling to death in the hot summer air.

The argument continues all the way into the parking lot.  Booster hops out, squints through the sun, and snaps a quick picture of their parking spot with his phone for later.  Everyone else takes their sweet time, still bickering.  For once, Ted’s day-glo outfit actually seems to fit the occasion.

It takes another ten minutes to start heading for the main entrance, as Tora brandishes a bottle of sunscreen and basically threatens everyone until they agree to put it on.  Ted purposefully leaves a big white stripe of sunscreen down his nose.

The gates to the zoo are these large shiny arches, which already lets Booster know that this zoo is going to be different from the one back home.  Gotham Zoo is… Well, Gotham Zoo is much like the rest of the city: distinctly aged with just a hint of neglect that even the wealthiest philanthropist can’t quite entirely hide.  Even the football stadium at Gotham U had been—

Booster shoves that thought downward and grabs a map on his way in.

The five of them crowd around the pamphlet, carefully tracing a route with their fingers.  From the entrance, they should be able to make a large circle around the zoo, as most of the kid’s attractions and activities are in the center.  As luck would have it, the Monkey House and the Bug House are on either side of a branching path that reunites at the picnicking area.  They agree to make that the last place they visit, so they can all stick together as long as possible.

Guy immediately takes charge, pulling a bemused Tora behind him as he leads the group.  Bea’s got her camera at the ready as she follows after them.  Booster and Ted take the rear.  They spend as much time at each exhibit as Guy allows them, which seems judged approximately by any given animal’s deadliness.  It takes them nearly an hour just to get through the big cats alone.

“I take back what I said earlier,” Booster says, as Guy points at a sleepy tiger and tells everyone within earshot about the amount of meat a tiger can eat in one night.

“What, about Metropolis radio hosts being fake-cheerful assholes?” Ted asks. 

“No,” Booster says.  “About best friends telling each other when they know former members of the Lanterns.”

“Ah,” says Ted.

Guy is now comparing the average weight of a tiger to the amount he can benchpress.

“Friends don’t introduce friends to Guy Gardner,” Booster says solemnly.

It really is a nice day out.  There are lots of couples walking around and families pushing strollers with snoozing babies in them.  As much as Booster had simply needed to escape his own apartment, this is a nice alternative, although he’s going to be absolutely exhausted by the time he clocks in for work.

When they come to the point where they need to split up, Ted looks hopefully at everyone.  Guy insists that he’s going to the Monkey House, and Bea reiterates that she can’t go to the Bug House.  She pulls Tora along with her, so that she doesn’t have to be alone with Guy.  Ted turns to Booster expectantly.

Booster doesn’t really  _ want  _ to go see a bunch of bugs, but… Well, it wouldn’t be fair for Ted to go alone.  And that puppy-dog face is really effective.

They head down the path to the large, glimmering building.  There’s a huge stag beetle perched on the entrance archway, and its surface shines in a purple-green iridescent way.

“When you said you were looking forward to this, I thought you were joking,” Booster says.  “You really like bugs?”

“Of course I like bugs,” Ted says, giving Booster a look.  “I went through a big phase when I was a kid—reading books, making my own collection...  You know how it is.  Every kid has a bug phase.”

“Every kid has a dinosaur phase,” Booster corrects him. “ _ You _ had a bug phase.”

“Bugs are cool,” Ted insists.  “I’ll show you.”

The inside of the building split into sections.  The first room is the Butterfly Garden, which is a greenhouse area filled with flowers. 

“Okay, this is pretty alright,” Booster says.  They wander along the curving stone path.

“This is my least favorite room,” Ted says, squinting.  “I have terrible allergies.”

Booster rolls his eyes.  A small blue butterfly lands in Ted’s hair, wings gently fluttering.

“Don’t move,” Booster orders, pulling his phone out to grab a picture.  Ted sneezes at exactly the wrong moment, leaving Booster with a picture that looks…

“I look like I’m expelling a demon,” Ted says, examining the screen.  “Nice.”

“This is my new lock screen background,” Booster says.

After the Butterfly Garden, there’s a room decorated to look like a kitchen.  A few of the appliances have inset glass cases where common household insects are displayed.

“Booster,” Ted says, peering into the fake microwave.  “Come check out this spider!  Its legs are so spindly.  From an engineering perspective, it’s really fascinating.”

“No, thank you,” Booster says, heading straight for the door to the next room.  “I’ll see his cousin the next time I have to take a shower.  He lives in the corner between the shower curtain and the toilet.  Also, in my nightmares.”

The final room is by far the largest; it’s dark and uncomfortably warm.  Glass terrariums line every wall, each filled with some new specimen.  Ted grabs Booster by the elbow and pulls him over to the closest one. 

“Look!” Ted says, excitedly.  “A orchid mantis.”  He points to a pinkish-white praying mantis, almost indistinguishable from the blossoms it’s resting on.  “ _ Hymenopus coronatus _ !”

“Bless you,” Booster says mildly.

Ted drags him from glass box to glass box, gesturing and reciting taxonomies that Booster can barely read, let alone pronounce.

“ _ Therea petiveriana _ !  Ooh, _  Decimiana bolivari _ , and that’s  _ Eremiaphila dentata _ !”

“Ooh, Ted,” Booster says, rolling his eyes.  “Talk _ dirty _ to me.”

Ted looks at Booster blankly for a moment. 

Then he smirks, and Booster’s heart drops into his stomach.

Oh _ no. _

“ _ Diochus electrus _ ,” Ted says, voice going low and husky.  He leans closer into Booster and slips one arm around his waist.

“Ted—“

“ _ Ctenophora elegans _ ,” Ted continues.  “ _ Lomechusa pubicollis _ .”

“Ted, I swear to God—“

“ _ Drosophila ambigua _ .”  He’s looking up at Booster through his lashes, selling it for all he’s got.  He’s got a fair amount.

“I was joking!”

Ted stands on tiptoe and murmurs “ _ Brachinus ejaculans _ ” into Booster’s ear.

Booster grabs Ted’s hand and hauls them through the exhibit until he finds the handicapped bathroom next to the exit and pushes Ted inside.

“You’re kidding, right?” Ted says, laughing.  Booster locks the door, glaring at Ted all the while, and gestures to the growing tent in his jeans.

“I hate you,” he growls, and Ted laughs again, pulling Booster away from the door.

“You want me to blow you?” Ted asks, grinning, and Booster hates himself so much because—

“No,” he admits, completely unable to look Ted in the eyes.  “No, because if you do that than you’ll-- I don’t want you to stop.”

“Stop?” Ted asks, still not understanding.  He’s unzipping Booster’s fly and gently pushing his jeans down to his thighs.

“Talking,” Booster hisses, and yeah, Ted goes a little still at that.

“Seriously?” He grins.  “This has got to be the first time someone asked me  _ not _ to shut up.”  He reaches into Booster’s briefs and circles the head of his dick with the barest touch of his fingers.  “Latin gets you off, huh?”

_ You _ get me off, Booster thinks, and thankfully his brain-to-mouth filter changes that horrifying sentiment to “I wish  _ you’d _ get me off” out loud.

“Clearly,” Ted says, pulling Booster’s cock free and smearing his precum between his fingers.  “Jesus, Booster.”

He sounds a little out of breath, which Booster takes as an invitation to move closer.  Ted’s back rests against the wall, and Booster widens his stance a bit so that their height difference is slightly decreased.  He rests one hand on Ted’s stomach, just below his belly button.  It’s enough so that the bottom of his palm is just barely brushing against Ted’s dick, which twitches, even through his pants. 

“How does a quick mutual handjob sound?” Ted proposes.  “That’s a mouth-free solution.”

Booster thinks that sounds perfect.

They don’t have the time or the privacy to really draw things out, but there’s something uniquely satisfying to the affair.  Booster works at Ted with one hand, using the other to bear his weight as he leans into Ted.  Ted’s fingers are wickedly efficient—cupping Booster’s balls with one hand and firmly jerking him with the other.  All the while, he’s gently murmuring into Booster’s ear.  It’s even better than before because now Ted isn’t putting on a sexy voice, he’s legitimately fighting to get syllables out through moans and hitching breaths. 

“ _ Graptodytes delectus _ ,” Ted says, eyes almost rolling into the back of his head.  “ _ Di _ …  _ Didea intermedia _ .  Booster, I can’t, I’m going to—“

“Shh,” Booster whispers.  “Come on, Ted.  We’re almost there.  Don’t stop.”

“ _ Riponnensia splendens _ ,” Ted hisses between clenched teeth.  “Shit, it’s hard to even remember these fucking names when you’re doing that.”

Booster flicks his thumb over the slit of Ted’s cock and nips at his ear.

“Almost there,” he says again, panting.  “Come on.  Push me over the edge, Ted.”

“ _ Sc _ \--  _ Scarabeus _ ,” Ted starts to say, and then he shudders and comes in Booster’s hand.

“Fuck yes,” Booster hums, hips bucking one more time before he follows suit.

They stand there for a moment, hands sticky, just leaning on each other and panting.

“ _ Scarabaeus sacer _ ,” Ted says wearily.  “Get off.  I need to wash my hands.”

Booster sticks his tongue out at him.

Five minutes later, they’re emerging into the hot summer sun, still jelly-legged and sleepy. Booster buys a drink from the nearest vendor.  It’s the best five dollar lemonade he’s ever had in his entire life.

The rest of the group is already waiting for them outside the picnicking area.  Guy waves them over.

“You chumps missed out,” he says, looking very smug.  “Bea had her back to the exhibit, and a gorilla rammed into the glass to scare her!  She jumped like five feet.”

“Fuck you,” Bea says, rolling her eyes.  “That was one moment of terror in a sea of nothingness.  Those monkeys were boring as hell.”

“How were the bugs?” Tora asks, applying a fresh coat of lip gloss. 

“You know,” Ted says, with a completely straight face, “I think Booster learned that bugs aren’t as gross as he thought.”

“Pretty boring, then?” Tora says, raising one eyebrow and looking to Booster.

“ _ So _ boring,” Booster says, nodding.

They find a picnic table and sit down.   Tora immediately takes out the sunscreen and demands everyone reapply.

“Sunburn is kinda punk rock,” Guy says in protest.

“Skin cancer is not punk rock,” Tora says, throwing the bottle and letting it smack uselessly off his bicep.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starving,” Ted says.  “Any objections to me ordering us a fuckton of greasy zoo pizza?”

“Godspeed, you beautiful angel,” Bea says solemnly.

Ted salutes everyone and heads off to the hideously long line in front of the Zoo Café. 

“He seems happy,” Tora says, after he’s out of earshot.  “It’s nice to see him happy.”

“Yeah,” Bea agrees.  “Happiest he’s been since Melody.”

“Melody?” Booster asks, dying to get some information about Ted’s ex.  “Is that who he was with before?  I haven’t asked him about it because it seems like a really tender subject.  She must have been a real psycho or something.”

Guy, Tora, and Bea all exchange a look.

“Well,” Bea says, fiddling with a ring on her pinky.  “Not really, no.”

“She was nice,” Tora says.  “Super smart.  Funny.  I mean, we all liked her.”

“So what happened?” Booster asks, confused.  “Is she dead or something?”

“Ted was kind of intense about her,” Tora says.  “Like… He was more into her than she was into him.  She liked him and all, but Ted was…”

“He proposed to her like, four times,” Guy says flatly.  “She said no.  Every time.”

“By the end of it, she kind of just told Ted that she didn’t see a future with him,” Bea says.  “It was pretty cringey, really.”

“Jesus Christ,” Booster says.  “And he hasn’t dated anybody since?”

“Hopefully that’ll change,” Bea says.  “Now that he seems like he’s recovering.”

Now Booster feels awkward as hell, so he changes the subject.  The four of them chit-chat about nothing in particular.  They’re in the middle of a heated debate about whether or not leafcutter ants would be able to eat through steel beams when Ted comes back, balancing twenty paper plates of incredibly unhealthy pizza.

“They only let me buy by the slice,” he says, grimacing as he carefully deposits two towers of heart attacks onto the wooden table.  “So.  Whoops.”

Booster’s about to ask what they’re going to drink, but Guy reaches into his backpack and pulls out a 2 liter of lukewarm rootbeer and some red solo cups.  Neither Ted, Bea, nor Tora seem surprised in the slightest.

After lunch, they’re on their way to go see the polar bears.  They pass a twelve foot tall bronze statue of a gorilla, and Guy freezes in his tracks.

“I need a picture,” he says, handing his phone to Bea without even looking at her.  “I’m gonna climb that.”

“I’m in,” Ted says, flipping his newsboy hat backwards.

“There is no way you can climb that statue,” Guy says, taken aback.  “You can’t even do a chin-up.”

“I have muscles!” Ted protests.  “You just can’t see them through my soft outer lining.”

Booster can actually vouch for this—Ted might be round around the edges, but he definitely has some muscle underneath.  His biceps and thighs, in particular, are firm as hell. 

“I started rock-climbing at the gym a couple of months ago,” Ted continues.  “I bet I beat you to the top of it, even.”

“Oh, it’s on,” Guy hisses.

Booster, Bea, and Tora can only stand in a stunned silence as the two of them book it for the statue and begin grappling their way to the top.

It being a gorilla, there aren’t exactly very good handholds, so the two of them are only about halfway up when a staff member starts yelling at them.

The entire group is escorted out of the zoo by a polite but firm security guard.

“Bad news,” Ted says, when they reach the parking lot.  “I don’t remember where we parked.”

“Got it covered,” Booster says, pulling out his phone.  “I took a picture.”

“You complete me,” Ted mouths to him when no one is looking.  Booster rolls his eyes.

Everyone is sore and tired on the ride home, so it’s a relatively quiet drive.  At one point, Ted starts humming a song that Booster only half recognizes.  When he realizes it’s “Latin Lover”, he punches Ted in the arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter ruined my browser search history but OH WELL


	8. October

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note! This chapter requires a trigger warning for two slur words, one of which is homophobic in nature. Please be careful! :)

 

By the time Autumn rolls around, Booster’s living situation has gone from mildly irritating to abysmal.  The current managing company goes bankrupt and sells the apartment complex to a new owner.  About a week later, Booster comes home to find a note on his door informing him that his rent will be almost doubling when his lease is up—which just so happens to be at the end of the month.

He’s too tired to fight.  Instead, he rents a storage unit to keep his worn, scuffed furniture in and manages to find a fleabag motel on the outskirts of the city. He moves the rest of his belongings, all two boxes of them, into a cheap pay-by-the-week room.  His previous digs hadn’t been all that nice, but at least there, Booster didn’t have to worry about getting mugged in the parking lot.  On the plus side, free cable.

He deliberately doesn’t tell Ted anything.  If he had been reluctant to let on about his subpar apartment, he sure as hell isn’t going to blab about this.

The Saturday night before Halloween, Booster heads over to Ted’s apartment, four _Scream_ movies in one hand and a six pack of beer in the other.  Ted greets him at the door wearing plastic vampire fangs.

They fuss for about a half an hour, hauling blankets and pillows out to the living room and popping enough popcorn to feed a family of ten.

Watching the first movie is great.  Watching the second movie is not as good.  By the third movie, Booster is squirming on the couch, trying to get comfortable.

“Problem?” Ted asks, pausing the movie and tilting his head.  “You have to go to the bathroom or something?”

“No,” Booster says, giving up and shoving the blankets off so he can stand up and stretch.  “My back is killing me.”

“Yeah?” Ted sinks further into the tangled blankets, clearly taking advantage of the open spot Booster’s left in order to stretch out on the couch.  “You need some painkillers?”

“I need a chiropractor,” Booster grumbles.  “I swear to God, if I sleep on that mattress for one more night, I’m going to wake up with a shattered spine.”

Ted makes a humming sound from under his quilt.

“That’s your thinking noise,” Booster accuses.

Ted’s face emerges.

“I could buy you a new mattress?”

“No,” Booster says, flatly.  “Absolutely not.”

“Really though,” Ted says.  “It doesn’t have to be a big deal.  I have the money.”

“Please stop,” Booster snaps, bending at the waist to try and alleviate some of the pain centering in his lower back.

“You know, they send mattresses in the mail these days,” Ted says brightly.  “We wouldn’t even have to go into a store or anything.  It would just ship to your door.”

“You can’t buy me a mattress,” Booster says irritably.  He folds all the way in half, palms flat against the floor.  It isn’t helping.

“Why not?  Dude, you’re in serious pain.  Let me help!”  Booster can practically hear the way Ted must be jutting his jaw out, stubborn ass that he is.

“Because I’m living out of a motel room right now, okay?” Booster admits. He gives up on bending forward and tries doing a mild backbend without falling over. “I don’t have the fucking space for an extra mattress, Ted.  Besides, it would only end up smelling like cigarettes, just like everything else there.”

Ted sits straight up from the blanket pile and stares at Booster, who consciously refuses to make eye contact and continues stretching.

“You live in a motel?” Ted says, bewildered.  “I thought you lived in an apartment!  Was that a lie?”

“No,” Booster says, through gritted teeth, now stretching to the side.  “It’s a recent thing.  About two months maybe? I dunno.  Rent went up, and I couldn’t afford it anymore.”

“Well, no wonder your back hurts,” Ted says.  “Is that why you look so tired all the time?”

“I don’t get a lot of sleep there,” Booster says.  “There’s the mattress, and the thin walls, not to mention the police sirens…”

“Jesus Christ, Booster,” Ted groans, crossing his arms.

Booster lies down on the floor, trying to get his back as flat as possible.  That alleviates a little bit of the pain, but not enough.

“Okay,” Ted says, “but what if I bought you—“

“Shut up,” Booster snaps.  “No one is buying anyone anything.”

Ted sits in silence, sulking, while Booster tries every yoga position he can remember ever seeing on television.  Finally, Ted kicks off the blankets and stands up.

“Get up,” he orders.  “I just thought of a moneyless solution to this problem.”

Booster doesn’t really believe him, but he lets Ted drag him down the hallway to the bedroom anyway.

“Is the solution blowjobs?” Booster asks hopefully, but Ted snorts at him and pushes him towards the bed.

“Take your shirt off,” he says, turning to rummage through the bedside table drawer.  “And lie down on your stomach.”

“Just my shirt?” Booster asks, but he does as he’s told.  Ted’s bed is so much softer than he remembered, and the way the blankets smell so clean, without a trace of bleach, is practically torment right now.

Ted climbs up on the bed and straddles Booster’s lower back.  He uncaps what sounds like a bottle of lube, but it smells like—

“Holy shit, is that chocolate syrup?” Booster says, twisting to get a better view and getting more sharp back pain for his efforts.

“It’s massage oil,” Ted says, sheepish.  Booster can hear him squeezing some into his hands and rubbing them together vigorously to warm them up.

“Since when does massage oil smell like dessert?” Booster says.  “Not that I’m complaining, but,  holy shit, that smells delicious.”

“You ever buy something that you thought was going to be super sexy, but then just never got around to using?”  Ted says, laughing.  “Because this stuff has got to be almost four years old.  I hope it didn’t expire or anything.”

He finally starts to apply the oil onto Booster’s back, and the smell of chocolate gets even stronger.  It’s not sickly sweet, but dark and aromatic, with a hint of some kind of fruit around the edges.  Booster closes his eyes and imagines decadent brownies with raspberry sauce drizzled across them.

Ted finishes coating Booster’s back and carefully lines his thumbs up on either side of Booster’s spine just at the top of his tailbone.  He begins working his way up, slowly rubbing circles into the muscles of his back.

“Oh shit,” Booster says.  “Okay, this is the best idea you’ve ever had.”

Ted plants his palms and gently begins to lean his body weight onto them, walking them up and down.  Booster’s back cracks and pops half a dozen times.

“God,” Booster moans, and he’s aware that it probably sounds pretty sexual but he’s actually not getting off on this right now.

Ted laughs quietly and shifts to the side for a moment.  He rests both of his forearms on Booster’s back, perpendicular to him, and firmly slides them up towards his shoulders.

“Shh,” Ted says.  “Just relax, bud.  I’m gonna try and work these knots out of your back.”

Booster slowly lets his body go limp as Ted gently kneads and rubs his back.  Ted’s pretty good at this.  No, Ted’s _damn_ good at this.

“You’re the best,” he mumbles into the bed, but Ted probably can’t hear him.

Without even meaning to, he drifts off.

\------------

Booster wakes up, bleary eyed, his body sticking to the sheets.  His first thought is that his goddamn motel air conditioning has broken again.  His second thought is that it’s not sweat that’s making the fabric cling to him, but something else.

Then he remembers.

He flinches fully awake and sits up in a panic.

He’s in Ted’s bedroom, in Ted’s bed.  He’s alone, but a quick glance at the other side of the bed confirms that Ted must have been sleeping next to him at some point during the night.

Booster’s broken one of his own rules, and he feels mildly sick to his stomach.

He crawls out of bed.  He pulls his clothes on, grimacing at the way his shirt sits on his skin.  The massage oil is still coating his back—dried, but slightly tacky to the touch, like a sticky table in a diner.  His back is feeling better, something he notes with a mixture of gratefulness and self-hatred.

Booster has every intention of slipping out the door as fast as possible, but when he gets out to the kitchen, Ted is making scrambled eggs and whistling off-tune.

“Morning!” He chirps, giving Booster a big, innocent grin.  “You slept like a rock, bud.”

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Booster says, shoving his hands into his pockets.  “I’m sorry.”

“Please,” Ted says, rolling his eyes and spooning the eggs onto two plates.  “It’s a compliment!  Listen, while you were asleep, I had an idea that will basically solve all your problems.”  He digs two forks out of the kitchen drawer and offers one of the plates to Booster.

Booster takes the plate and numbly sits down on a stool at the kitchen island.  Ted seems to be interpreting his silence and dread for morning drowsiness, so he continues on.

“Honestly, it’s so simple, I kind of feel like an idiot for not thinking of it right away,” Ted says, digging into his eggs and eating a huge mouthful.   “But, duh.  You should move in with me.”

“What?” Booster says, putting down his fork altogether.

“Move in here,” Ted says with a huge smile.  “I have a spare bedroom!  I’ve just been using it as a guest room but like… Dude, when do I ever have guests?  Aside from you, I mean, so it’s basically perfect!”

“No,” Booster says, shaking his head.  He’s at a complete loss for words, so he just says it again.  “No.”

“What?”  Ted looks surprised, then confused.  “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“No,” Booster says, pushing his plate away from him.  “It’s a bad idea.”  The sick feeling from earlier is starting to bubble into a panicked sort of anger in his chest, and he needs to get out of the apartment, out of here.

“How is it a bad idea?” Ted says, creases appearing in his forehead.   “You don’t have a place to live.  I have an extra room.  We’re best friends.”

“Ted, I can’t afford to pay rent here,” Booster says, latching onto the first thing he can think of.  “I don’t make nearly enough money.”

“Who cares about money?” Ted says, and then he actually winks at Booster.  “I’m sure we can figure something out.”  The insinuation in his voice is entirely for comedic effect, but it pushes Booster over the edge.

“I’m not a whore,” he snaps, standing up.

“Whoa,” Ted says, immediately backpedaling.  He spreads his hands wide, the smile slipping from his faee.  “I wasn’t—I was joking, Booster.  I didn’t mean—“

“And I’m definitely not going to live with you just so that you can fuck me from the safety of your closet,” Booster says.  “I’m not an idiot, Ted.”

“What?” Ted blushes.  “What are you talking about?”

“You think I didn’t notice?” Booster’s practically shaking.  He feels oddly hollow right now, as though he’s standing a few yards away and watching himself hurl accusations at Ted.  “You’ve never told your friends about us.  You’re terrified at the thought of them knowing that you might not be straight.”

“It’s not like that,” Ted says.  “You don’t know—“

“I know enough,” Booster hisses.  “You’ll fuck a fag, but you won’t _be_ one in public.  I get it.”

For one ugly moment, Booster feels a sick amount of pleasure at the look on Ted’s face, the way he’s twisted the knife.  But what Ted says next—

“Are you seriously lecturing me about secrets?” Ted says, running his hands through his curls and laughing in disbelief.  “I can’t keep my private life private, but _you’re_ allowed to keep things to yourself all you want?”

"What, is this about the apartment?" Booster says, rolling his eyes.

"You know what I'm talking about," Ted replies.

 Just like that, in a split second, all the heat is gone from Booster.  It’s as if he’s been plunged into freezing cold water.  He forgets to breathe.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Booster says, but the words fall clumsily from his mouth.  He’s never been able to lie to Ted.  Not since day one.

“Guy recognized you right away,” Ted says, crossing his arms.  “He says it was all over the papers, the television… I was never much for sports, so I wouldn’t have paid attention, but—“

“Stop,” Booster whispers, but Ted can’t hear him.

“He said they call you the Black Sheep of Gotham,” Ted says.  “The disgraced home-town hero.”

Booster says nothing.

“I just think it’s funny,” Ted says, without a trace of a smile or a laugh, “that someone with a fucking graveyard in their closet would be bothering me about mine.”

And Booster does the only thing he’s good at—he leaves.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> plz send all venting and angry letters to shibascarf.tumblr.com  
> i hurt u bc i love u


	9. November

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Okay, got this chapter done. Hopefully my pace gets a little faster as I go.   
> If you're dying for more boostle content, I have started an rp account @ allamericandisaster.tumblr.com  
> I also recently posted a small fic for the boostle giftathon remix challenge. :)  
> We're about half-way through now. Enjoy!

It takes Booster a solid three weeks to admit to himself that he needs to apologize to Ted.  He fully expects that Ted never wants to see him again, and no apology could change that.  But it’s the right thing to do. 

At first, he starts to compose a text, but then he realizes how ridiculously immature that would be.  He can do better than that.

He almost decides on a plan where he camps out at the sports bar where they met until Ted shows up.  That, he ultimately concludes, is dangerously pathetic.

He settles for writing Ted a letter and leaving it at his office.

The corporate headquarters for Kord Industries is in uptown Metropolis, the opposite side of the city from the museum where Booster works.  It’s not the tallest skyscraper in the area, but it is pretty: all sleek and shiny with nearly seamless glass windows.

Booster’s too jittery to use the elevator, so he takes the stairs instead-- hopping them two at a time until his calves are aching.  He realizes, twenty stories too late, that he didn’t even check to see if Ted’s office is at the top floor or not.

He climbs until he hits the roof access door, turns around, and takes the nearest exit door.  It’s a Sunday, so he’s betting on Ted not being in.  He just wants to drop off a note to the secretary for him to find on Monday.

Thankfully his assumptions were correct about the location of Ted’s office, which actually has one of those little waiting rooms with a sofa across from the secretary’s desk.

The secretary, a middle-aged woman with teased black hair like something out of the eighties, gives Booster a very slow up-and-down with her eyes.

“I took the stairs,” Booster says, still a little out of breath and incredibly conscious of how sweat is making his tanktop cling. 

“I can see that,” she says, clearly not sure what to make of him.  “Do you have an appointment with Mr. Kord this afternoon?  I’m afraid he’s—“

“No, no,” Booster says, hastily.  He digs into his pocket and pulls out the letter.  It took him three drafts, and then he had to rewrite it because he was worried his handwriting was so illegible.  “I just wanted to leave this for him.”

She eyes the letter.  It’s a little crumpled from being in his pocket.  Booster tries to smooth it out on her desk, to little avail.

“Who should I say the letter is from?” She takes the letter somewhat gingerly.

“Just say it’s from, uh—from Booster,” he says.

Ted’s office door opens, and Ted walks out backwards, wrestling a suit jacket on and carrying a notepad in his mouth.  He turns to his secretary and sees Booster.

They both freeze. 

“Boost,” Ted says, as soon as he can get the notepad out of his mouth, more breathing the word than speaking it.  “Hi, um…”

“I was just—“  Booster gestures helplessly at the letter.  “I didn’t think you’d be in today.  It’s Sunday.”

“Is it?” Ted says, forehead wrinkling.  “I’m at like… two all-nighters in a row, so I don’t—“

“Three, sir.”  They turn to look at the secretary in surprise.  She purses her lips.  “I’m sorry, Mr. Kord, but they are waiting for you in the—“

“Oh, god.”  Ted turns to Booster, looking for all the world like a teenager being sent to detention.  “I have to— The guys in R&D are expecting me.  I have to meet with them; they’ve been trying to get me to go down there all week.”

“Oh, I mean…” Booster gestures weakly to the door.  “I was just on my way out, actually.”

“No, no!” Ted makes a move like he’s going to touch Booster’s shoulders and then backs out of it in one awkward, frantic motion.  “Stay?  I’ll make it as quick as possible.  We could get lunch?”

“It’s three in the afternoon,” Booster says, but he can feel the smile creeping onto his lips in spite of himself.

“A large snack, then.  Coffee, with those little pastries that are way more calories than they should be.  Please?”

“I guess I can wait for a little bit,” Booster says, folding. 

“Mr. Kord,” the secretary starts to say in a warning tone, and then Ted is booking it out the door.

“You can wait in my office,” Booster hears, just before the door slams shut.  He turns to look at the secretary.  She shrugs and hands him his letter back.

Ted’s office is fairly bland and corporate looking, which shouldn’t be a surprise and yet somehow is.  Booster walks the perimeter of the room, looking at the books on the bookshelf (mostly books on leadership and running a successful business) and the large painting on the wall (a watercolor landscape of what Booster is pretty sure is the Chicago skyline).

Ted’s desk is a solid, wooden behemoth, and Booster sinks into the huge padded chair behind it.  He spins the chair around and takes a minute to admire the view from the window.

He doesn’t mean to snoop, per se, but it’s just so odd that Ted’s office is lacking in personality that he can’t help himself from pulling out one or two drawers.  The center drawer, the narrowest, is full of pens and pencils.  It’s every bit as disorganized as Booster would have expected.  There are a few paperclip chains, a crumpled up page from a planner (dated about a year ago), and the beginnings of a rubber band ball.

Booster closes that drawer and opens one of the largest ones, on the bottom right.

It is completely empty except for one thing: the mutated Scooby from the knock-off toy set Ted had bought in Chinatown.

Booster legitimately has to take a minute to stifle his laughter so that the secretary outside won’t think he’s insane.  He picks Scooby up and sets him on top of the desk.  There.  Now this feels a little more like Ted’s office. 

He settles back into the chair and pulls out his phone.  That’s probably enough snooping.  He can just browse twitter until Ted comes back.

Just a little more than thirty minutes later, Ted opens the door and peers in.

“You’re still here,” he says, sounding surprised but not ungrateful.  “I’m glad.”

Booster shrugs and stands up.

“So.  Snack?”

“Snack,” Ted agrees.  “We’ll just run to the café across the street.”  Booster follows him into the elevator. 

The ride down is one of stifling silence.  Booster can’t help but relive their fight over and over in his head, and he’s pretty sure Ted is doing the same.  He tries to remind himself that he stayed because he  _ wanted to _ , even if right now every cell in his body is screaming that he should leave.

The café across the street is called  _ Deja Brew _ .  It’s a small, cozy place.  The barista waves to Ted as he comes in and immediately scribbles Ted’s name onto a cup.  He must come here a lot.

Booster waits in line and orders himself some tea and a muffin.  Ted has already grabbed a table in the back corner of the café, somewhere with relative privacy.

Booster sits down and takes a sip of his drink, not sure how to begin.

Ted speaks first.

“I’m sorry,” he says, both hands wrapped tightly around his cardboard cup of coffee.  “Okay?  I’m really sorry.  When I said that you should move in with me, I wasn’t—“

He pauses, sighs, and continues.

“My whole adult life, I’ve had this idea in my head that I wasn’t going to be some stuffy, snobby rich asshole, you know?  I was never gonna be  _ that guy _ .”

“Hmm,” Booster says, unwrapping his muffin.

“But I was,” Ted says.  “I was  _ that guy _ .  I didn’t think it was a big deal, because I’m privileged.  I didn’t think about how it made you feel, or the kind of power dynamic it introduced.”

Booster pulls his muffin up and flips it upside-down so he can start picking pieces off of the bottom.

“And I shouldn’t have said what I did.  It wasn’t fair of me, and you’re—“  Ted stops in his tracks.  “What the hell are you doing?”

“The muffin top is the best part,” Booster says, pulling off another chunk of blueberry muffin and sticking it in his mouth.  “I like to save it for the end.”

“I take back everything I just said,” Ted says, looking horrified.  “You are a monster.”

They look at each other, for a just a moment, and then begin to laugh softly.  The awkwardness barrier is gone now.

“I’m sorry too,” Booster says.  “You were just trying to be helpful.  It had nothing to do with keeping secrets or having sex with me.  And it’s none of my business who you tell about our… unorthodox friendship.  It’s your closet.”

“I’m not in the closet,” Ted grumbles.  “Guy and Bea, even Tora…  You’ve seen how much they give me a hard time about dating.  I just didn’t want them being judgmental about this.  They wouldn’t understand.”

“But they do clearly think you’re straight,” Booster says, arching one eyebrow.

“I am straight,” Ted says, in protest.  “Mostly.  I mean, aside from you.”

And that statement confirms something that Booster had only suspected.  It does something to him, though he can’t quite put a name to it.  He feels warm inside and a little giddy.  He takes another bite of his muffin.

“I’m not going to apologize for not telling you about the whole scandal thing,” Booster says.  “It’s not something I want people to know.  Honestly, I try not to think about it as much as possible.”

Ted opens his mouth to speak and then hesitates.

“Go ahead,” Booster says.  “I know you have questions.”

“Did you move to Metropolis because…?” Ted trails off, still afraid to ask the question.

“Because of the football thing?”  Booster replies.  “Yeah.  That’s basically what happened.  I kept getting these nasty phone calls and death threats.”  He takes a long sip of his tea.  “My mom couldn’t even look at me anymore.”

“I don’t understand,” Ted says, shaking his head.  “From what I’ve read, you basically had the whole world in front of you.  An NFL contract, merchandising deals… Why did you do it?”

Booster sits back in his chair and stares up at the ceiling.  He’s been asking himself that question for years.

“I don’t know,” he says.  “My mom was— my mom is sick.  And we were poor, and healthcare is expensive, and I was impatient.”

“Hmm,” Ted says, looking down at his coffee.

“I was impatient,” Booster repeats.

“Did you ever lose a game on purpose because of the gambling?” Ted asks.  Booster grimaces.

“I tried to, once,” he admits.  He’s never told anyone this.  “It wasn’t a big game or anything.  Wouldn’t have affected our ranking at all.  But I got so jittery and guilty that I puked my guts out in the locker room before the game.  Coach benched me.”

“Jesus,” Ted says, but not in a judgmental way.  More like he’s being sympathetic to the vomiting.

“After that, I never bet on my team losing again,” Booster said.  “At least then I could sleep at night.”

Until everything came crashing down, at least.  Ted is kind enough to not ask about that part.

“So, listen,” Ted says, gnawing on his lip.  “This is probably a crazy thing to say, but uh…  You’re still welcome to move in with me.”

Booster looks up in surprise and tilts his head.

“I know,” Ted says, hastily.  “I get it.  I know I just finished apologizing for having offered this before, but…  You’re my best friend, Booster.  It doesn’t sit right with me that you’re living out of a motel when I have a perfectly good room for you at my place.”

“I can’t afford to pay my fair share,” Booster says. 

“I know,” Ted says.  “And, I understand that.  I’m not going to like… say you shouldn’t pay anything, but I think you could pay for utilities?  And maybe groceries.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Booster agrees, but Ted has this pinched look on his face like he’s not done talking, so he waits.

“And--  And just to really reassure you that I’m not trying to pressure you or anything, I promise that I won’t… initiate anything,” Ted says.  “Sexual, I mean,” he clarifies.  “For as long as you’re living with me, you won’t have to worry about me taking advantage of the situation.”

Booster laughs at that and finishes off the stump of the muffin.

“Let’s not make promises we can’t keep,” he says, grinning.  “I appreciate the offer, Ted, but I’ll be fine.  It’s taking a lot of willpower to not drag you into the bathroom right now.  I don’t have a lot of faith in my ability to live with you and not ‘take advantage of the situation’ myself.”

“Oh, thank god,” Ted says, exhaling.  “I mean, I had every intention of staying true to that promise, but I was really hoping you’d say—“

He pauses.

“So is that a ‘yes’ to moving in with me?” Ted asks, clutching his coffee.  “Right?  That’s a ‘yes’?”

“Please tell me I can move in tomorrow,” Booster says.  “I’m a lunatic if I turn this down.  I think I might actually get murdered if I stay in that motel room any longer.”

“You can move in tonight,” Ted says.

Booster tears his muffin top in half and hands Ted one of the pieces.  He nibbles at it and wrinkles his nose at Booster.

“You are insane for thinking this was worth mutilating a perfectly good muffin,” Ted says.

“I think we’ve both demonstrated that we have poor judgment,” Booster says, “so I’m willing to overlook your false opinions on muffin tops and move in with you anyway.”

“Whatever, Roomie,” Ted scoffs.


	10. December

“So explain this to me one more time,” Booster says.  “Why exactly are we shopping for Christmas decorations four days after Christmas?”

“First, because they’re on sale,” Ted replies, digging through yet another bargain bin of “stocking stuffers”.  He pulls out a hideous set of Mr. and Mrs. Claus salt and pepper shakers, considers them, and then tosses them back in.  “Second, because we need decorations for tonight’s party.  Third,” he continues, pulling out a spectacularly ugly pair of novelty plastic menorah glasses, “we’re really not buying ‘Christmas’ decorations because this is a non-specific ’Winter Holiday’ catch-all kind of thing.”

He puts on the glasses, which have a blue moustache dangling from the nosepiece.

“And you do this every year?” Booster says, eyeing their full shopping cart with distaste.

“Since college,” Ted confirms, pulling the glasses off and tossing them into the cart.  “Instead of having multiple holiday parties and a New Year’s party, we just shove all of them into one thing.  Everyone kind of does their own winter traditions together.”

“I don’t have any traditions,” Booster says.  “Do I need to make one up?”

“I guess you could just do the ugly sweater thing,” Ted muses.

“Sure,” Booster says, leaning onto the cart handle.  “I’ll just grab something out of your closet then.”

The look that Ted shoots him could curdle milk, but Booster is thankfully saved by his cell-phone ringing.

“It’s my sister.  I gotta take this,” he says.  Ted shrugs and goes back to the bargain bin.  Booster accepts the call and walks a few feet away.

“Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us,” a familiar voice sings into his ear.  Booster snorts, but waits as she finishes the entire song.  “Happy birthday to the Wonder Twins,” she concludes, drawing out the syllables.  “Happy birthday to us!”

“Hey,” Booster says.  “Happy birthday, Shel.”

“The big 2-5, huh, Mikey?” Michelle laughs, warm and happy.  “We’re a quarter of a century now.”

“Half a century, if you put us together,” Booster says.  “You got any plans?”

“Mom and I are just gonna eat ice cream, I think,” Michelle says.  “Same as last year.”

“Yeah?  That sounds good,” Booster says.  “I’m not really doing anything.  I mean, I’m going to a holiday party tonight, but that’s not about me.”  Booster picks at his sweater with his free hand until he’s worked up enough courage.  “How is she?” he asks.

Michelle sighs.

“I don’t know,” she says, lowering her voice.  “Sometimes I think she’s about the same as last year, but she has these moments, you know?  I really worry about her.  You should come visit.”

“She doesn’t want that,” Booster says. 

“Well, I want it,” Michelle says, a little petulant.  “I miss you, Mikey.  I haven’t seen your dumb face in person for way too long.”

“My face is handsome,” Booster says, aghast.

“Handsome and dumb are not mutually exclusive,” Michelle says, and Booster can hear her smile in her voice.  “Maybe I’ll come up to Metropolis.  Meet that rich roommate of yours.”

“Hands off,” Booster says sternly.  “Find your own.”

“Please,” Michelle scoffs.  “After you stole my date to Senior Prom, you owe me.”

“That was, like, eight years ago,” Booster protests.  “Isn’t the statute of limitations up on that?”

They both laugh.

“Well, have fun tonight,” Michelle says.  “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Sure,” Booster says, fondly.  “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

He hangs up the phone, firmly ignoring the thick feeling in his throat when he swallows, and walks back over to Ted.

“We good?” Booster asks, looking at their full cart with apprehension.  “I find it hard to believe that Guy’s gonna let you put all this crap around his house.”

“That’s part of the challenge of it,” Ted says, but he starts pushing the cart towards the check-out lines.

“As long as we’re not putting it in our place,” Booster mutters, and Ted laughs.

That’s probably been the strangest thing about living with Ted—the way Booster finds himself saying “we” and “our” like it’s no big deal.  It doesn’t even feel like a big deal, even though Booster hasn’t lived with someone else since college.

He had only moved in with a handful of belongings— the same two boxes that he’d taken with him to the motel.  He’d carried one up the stairs, and Ted got the other.  They had set the boxes down in the guest room, and Booster had been struck with how strange it was; Ted had a whole apartment of belongings, while Booster had two boxes and a storage unit of shitty furniture that looked like it belonged in a landfill.

“I didn’t know you played the guitar,” Ted had said excitedly, gesturing to the guitar case Booster had slung around his back.

“I don’t,” Booster said quickly.  “I mean, I used to.  In college, I used to play at parties.  But I really only know sad songs.”

“Oh my god,” Ted cackled.  “You were totally  _ that douche _ with a guitar, weren’t you?  Trying to pick up chicks.”

“Rude,” Booster said, narrowing his eyes, but Ted had already moved on to pulling out rolled up posters and speculating how old they were based on the worn edges and taped-over tears.

Now, as he helps Ted unload the cart full of decorations into the trunk of the car, Booster realizes he’s stopped thinking about the stuff in the apartment as belonging to either one of them so clearly.  He drinks out of Ted’s novelty mugs and sometimes comes home to Ted binge watching one of his boxed DVD sets.  Everything just blends together. 

\---------------

Before they drive over to Guy’s place, Ted drives them to a strip-mall and parks the car.

“Be right back,” he tells Booster.  “Got one more thing to buy.”

Booster watches him disappear into a small bakery and then re-emerge with two large boxes, which he places into the trunk.

“What was that about?” Boosters asks.

“Sufganiyah,” Ted replies, buckling his seat belt and pulling the car back onto the road.

“Gesundheit,” Booster says.

“They’re like... fried jelly doughnuts,” Ted says, laughing.  “It’s traditional Hanukkah food.  My mom used to make them every winter.”

“She never taught you how?” Booster asks.

Ted shrugs.

“I was only thirteen when she passed.  Plus--” he says, with a wry smile, “--and trust me on this: you  _ do not _ want me anywhere near a fryer.  I can’t even boil water without burning myself.”

“Ah, yes,” Booster says, nodding.  “I do remember that time you almost set the kitchen on fire trying to make poptarts.”

As they drive, Booster watches out the window.  People in Metropolis seem to be much more into the holiday spirit than back home.  Most of the houses are decked out in twinkling lights.  Booster loses count of the number of wooden reindeer they pass. 

“I meant to check if the snow is good for packing,” Ted murmurs.  “Shoot.”

Metropolis doesn’t get as much snow as Gotham does in the winter, but there’s still a good couple of inches on the ground.

“Are we making a snowman or something?” Booster asks.  “I guess that sounds like something Tora might want to do.”

Ted shoots him an ominous look but says nothing.

When they pull up to Guy’s driveway, Booster spots Bea’s car.  Bea and Tora always carpool, so he and Ted are the last ones to arrive. 

“Go ahead,” Ted says, getting out and walking to the trunk.  “I can bring everything in.”

“Don’t be a martyr,” Booster says, rolling his eyes.  Ted reluctantly hands him a few of the bags before Booster carefully makes his way up the slippery sidewalk to Guy’s door.  Clearly, Guy has never heard of salt.

Inside, Guy’s house smells unusually pleasant, like freshly baked cookies and cinnamon.  Curiously, all the lights are off.  It’s eerily quiet.

“Guy?” Booster calls.  “Hello?”

“In the living room,” Guy calls, from down the hallway.  Booster frowns and shifts the grocery bags over to one hand so that he can feel his way along the wall in the dim light.

“Getting a weird vibe right now,” Booster calls out, somewhat nervous.  “This is basically the beginning of a horror movie.”

He finds the doorway to the living room and squints into the darkness.  There aren’t any windows and all the lights are off.

“Why are you sitting in a pitch black room?” Booster says.

Suddenly, all the lights turn on.  Guy, Tora, and Bea emerge from behind the furniture.

“Surprise!” Tora says in delight.  “Happy Birthday!”

Guy half-heartedly blows into a paper noisemaker.  Bea gestures excitedly to the banner they’ve hung on the wall: Happy Birthday Booster.

“Oh,” Booster manages to say, dropping the bags of decorations.  “Holy shit.”

“For he’s a jolly good fellow,” Bea starts singing, and Tora and Guy join in with the harmonies.  “For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fe-ellow…”

“Which nobody can deny,” Ted finishes, singing just a little off-tune from behind Booster.

Booster turns in surprise to see Ted holding one of the boxes from the bakery.  The lid is flipped open to reveal a birthday cake with 25 unlit candles.

“I never told you it was my birthday,” Booster says, dumbfounded.

“You have a Wikipedia page,” Guy retorts.  “It wasn’t rocket science.”

They all begin to usher Booster into the dining room, where there are plates laid out for dinner.

“Just to clarify,” Ted says, “I didn’t lie about the winter traditions part of tonight.  We just thought celebrating your birthday could be  _ your _ winter tradition.”

“We’ll eat the cake later,” Tora says, taking it from Ted’s arms and heading off to the kitchen.  “For now, it’s time for dinner!”

Dinner is an eclectic affair: a mixture of foods from multiple cultures.  Booster’s never eaten Feijoada or Syltelabb, let alone at the same time.  Ted brings out the sufganiyah, even though they’re more of a dessert food.  They are absolutely delicious—fried dough and sweet jam.  Bea has prepared a huge pitcher of caipirinha, which is a Brazilian mixed cocktail of lime and sugarcane liquor.  Everyone has a bit too much to drink. 

After dinner, they return to the living room to watch  _ It’s a Wonderful Life _ (and a handful of other Christmas specials) and gnaw on marzipan pigs that Tora made herself.  They’re clumsily sculpted, but that just adds to the charm.  Booster’s never actually eaten marzipan before.  It has a mild but sweet taste.  Ted also sneaks Booster a few chocolate coins to nibble on.

Following that, they bring out Booster’s cake and have him blow out the candles (several times, because Ted has, of course, put trick candles on it).  It’s good cake, red velvet with cream cheese frosting.  Booster doesn’t even remember telling Ted what his favorite kind of cake was.

They’re sitting around the table and chit-chatting over empty plates when Guy’s cellphone goes off.  He pulls it out of his pocket and swipes the alarm off, grinning.

“Here we go,” Ted says, sighing heavily and getting up.  Bea and Tora follow suit.

“Wait, what?” Booster says, standing up as well.  “What’s going on?”

“I’m gonna put the pot on the stove,” Guys says.  “I’ll meet you at the back door.”

Booster follows Ted, Tora, and Bea to the front door, where they all put on their shoes and then walk down the hallway to the door to the backyard.

“So, now we’re doing Guy’s tradition,” Ted says.  “At midnight, we go outside and have a snowball fight.”

“Don’t we need coats?” Booster asks, confused.

“No coats, no mittens, no teams, no whining,” Guy says, coming around the corner to join them.  “Just ten straight minutes of adrenaline to welcome in the new year.”

“Are you serious?” Booster says, but then Guy’s cellphone alarm goes off again—

Guy practically kicks the door open and the five of them go jogging out into the night air.  Booster only has a moment to think about how freezing it is when he gets a face full of snowball.

“First blood,” Tora cackles triumphantly, and now  _ it is on _ .

The next ten minutes are a whirlwind of gleeful shrieking, racing hearts, and numb fingers.  Bea shoves a handful of snow down Booster’s sweater and retreats, cackling.  Guy is wielding snowballs dual handed, sometimes tipping forward while running to precariously scoop up handfuls without having to slow down.  Ted tries to do the same and face plants into a snowbank, which makes Booster laugh so hard that his stomach cramps up.

There’s something about the whole thing—It’s so childlike and fast-paced.  Booster feels thoroughly alive, like every cell in his body is awake and making itself known.

Eventually, just as everyone begins to slow down from exertion, Guy’s cell phone rings again, signaling the end of the snowball fight.  They trudge back to the door, whooping and giving high fives all around—a little difficult since no one can feel their hands.

Everyone kicks their shoes off in the hallway.  Ted’s entire front side is wet from his fall into the snow, and Booster can feel the icy water dripping down his back. 

“To the kitchen,” Guy announces, and everyone shuffles further into the house.

In the kitchen, Guy takes a teapot off the stove and begins pouring out mugs of steaming hot chocolate.

“Okay,” Booster says, shaking his hands to try and rid himself of the burning sensation of feeling returning to them.  “That was actually way better than I expected.”

“The apprehension is the worst part,” Ted says, gingerly taking a mug and leaning against the counter.

“Every year, I think to myself that it’s too cold and not going to be fun,” Bea agrees.  “And every year, we end up having a blast.”

“You’re welcome,” Guy says, with a smug grin.  Booster’s beginning to wonder if Guy knows how to smile without looking smug.

They stand in a circle and drink the hot chocolate until their bodies have warmed up. 

“Well,” Tora says, draining her mug, “this has been a very successful—“  She cuts herself off with an enormous yawn.

“Same,” Bea says, setting her mug down on the counter.  “Bedtime?”

“Hallelujah,” Ted says.

Apparently, sleeping arrangements have been pre-discussed.  Guy sleeps in his own room, of course, and Bea and Tora share the guest bedroom.  That leaves Ted and Booster to sleep in the living room.  Booster takes one couch, and Ted takes the other. 

“What happens in the morning?” Booster says, fighting back a yawn as he burrows under the thick blanket Guy pulled out of the hall closet.

“Tora makes Belgian waffles,” Ted says, sleepily.  “Then we’ll eat too much, go back to the apartment, and take a nap.”

“Holy shit, I can’t wait,” Booster says.  “And you do this every year?”

“Every year,” Ted says.  “Good night, buddy.”

“G’night, Ted.”

 


	11. February II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to everyone who has been so patient in waiting for this chapter. I could provide a laundry list of things that contributed to the delay, but instead I'll list the positives: getting a new job, and getting engaged. :)  
> I'm currently trying out a new writing schedule, so I'm hopeful that updates should be coming more frequently from here on out.

 

It was a dull evening at work, so Booster’s fingers are itching by the time he gets home.  

On nights like these, if Booster comes back to find Ted has already gone to bed, he likes to grab his guitar and just mess around with it until he feels drowsy enough to try sleeping.  He’s not great at the guitar, but he knows enough chords to do more than just play covers. Usually, he’ll just sit on his bed and pick at scraps of melodies, play with phrases and sounds that get stuck in his head.  Ted, as far as Booster has been able to tell, could sleep through a hurricane, so volume is never much of an issue.

This time, however, when Booster opens the front door of the apartment, the lights are all on, so he can tell that Ted is still awake.

“I’m home,” Booster announces, dropping his backpack at the door and going straight to his room so he can change out of his work clothes.

When he’s done, he heads over to Ted’s room.

Sometime in the last few months, Ted’s started to get back into sound production again.  He has a whole set-up in his room, in front of his computer—a sound mixing board with sliders, a worn out electric keyboard, and the sturdiest looking headphones that Booster’s ever seen in his life.  Booster assumes Ted’s been working on some stuff for Guy’s band—which still doesn’t have a name. Neither he nor Bea and Tora can agree on one.

Ted’s lying on his bed, sprawled out on his stomach and scribbling some formulas down into a yellow legal pad.  He perks up when Booster knocks on the open door frame.

“Hey,” Booster says.  “You’re still up?”

“Yeah,” Ted says, rolling onto his back and heaving a sigh.  “Can’t sleep.”

“Hmm,” Booster says, climbing onto Ted and straddling his hips.  “I can think of a few solutions.”

“Can you, now?” Ted says, grinning and pulling Booster down into a slow kiss.  “I’ve actually been doing some thinking of my own.”

“About what?” Booster says, as he starts unbuttoning Ted’s shirt.  Ted hesitates, so Booster takes the opportunity to lean forward and nip at his neck.

“About sex stuff,” Ted says, his tone making it sound like a question.  Booster snorts and licks his way up to Ted’s earlobe. “I mean, about maybe seeing if we could, um…”  He trails off when Booster nibbles at his ear and then continues. “I guess, I’m kind of curious about what it’s like to be, uh.  Receiving.”

Booster sits up.

“Really?” he says, and Ted winces visibly at the enthusiasm in his voice.  Booster scoots off of Ted’s lap, so Ted can raise himself up to sitting.

“Okay, slow your roll,” Ted says, pointing at Booster.  “I’m not-- This isn’t me saying ‘All Aboard the Anal Train’, okay?  This is like… Me standing in the station and thinking about buying a ticket.  Or looking at a model train in a museum. Or…” He pauses. “These are all terrible metaphors.”

“I’m impressed that you didn’t make a caboose joke,” Booster says, smiling fondly.  Ted rolls his eyes.

“Anyway, I just—  I thought maybe we could try, um… Something.”

“Fingers?” Booster asks, holding his own up and wiggling them.

“You have much larger hands than I remembered,” Ted grumbles.  “But, yes.”

“Tonight?” Booster asks, trying not to sound too eager.  “Or later this week, or…?”

“Might as well do it tonight,” Ted says, wryly.  “I don’t think you’re going to be able to sleep tonight if we don’t.  You look like you just drank five cups of coffee.”

“Rude,” Booster says, but he’s grinning.  He hops off the bed and goes over to the side table, where they usually keep the lube and condoms.  Ted unbuttons his pants and wriggles out of them. Returning with the lube, Booster kicks out of his sweatpants and pulls his worn t-shirt over his head.  He sits on the bed, as Ted finishes unbuttoning his shirt, tossing it on the floor, and then removes his undershirt as well.

They look at each other for a moment, unsure.

“Should I…?” Ted says, gesturing to his boxers, but Booster can tell that Ted’s still a little stiff with apprehension.

“Not yet,” he says, crawling over to Ted and pushing him back down onto the bed.  “Let’s warm up a little.”

He kisses Ted gently, lets Ted respond in kind.  Booster rolls over so that they’re both on their sides, which probably feels less intimidating for Ted.  Booster doesn’t remember much about his own first time, but he does know a lot about Ted. Ted needs a little coaxing when he’s trying new things, whether it’s food or a new position.  

Gradually, the pace intensifies, and the two of them are entwined on the bed, limbs tangled up together.  Booster lets his hands wander, dipping them down to slip under the waistband of Ted’s boxers and cupping his ass.  Ted shivers and groans, his arousal evident as his tented erection brushes against Booster’s hip.

Booster unravels himself from Ted and pushes himself lower, so that he’s lying on his stomach between Ted’s legs.  He tugs at Ted’s boxers, and Ted shakily removes them. Ted’s eyes dart nervously over to the bottle of lube, but Booster shakes his head and brings Ted’s cock to his mouth instead.

The effect is almost instantaneous, as Ted’s eyes roll back and he sinks back limply.  Ted reacts to blowjobs like a junkie getting a hit, Booster muses. It’s nearly instant full-body relaxation.

Booster sucks on the head of Ted’s cock, letting his tongue brush at the vein on the bottom, before carefully sliding the rest of the shaft into his mouth.  He pushes all the way down until he can feel Ted’s wiry hair brushing at his nose, pulls back, and then sucks again, letting the suction pull his mouth all the way back down.

“God,” Ted says, and Booster pulls all the way up and pats Ted on the inner thigh.

“That’s right,” Booster says, his mouth still close enough to the head of Ted’s dick that every word causes his lips to brush against it.  “Just relax, okay? I’ve got you.”

“Mmm,” Ted agrees, and lets his head loll to the side as Booster takes him in his mouth again.  

Normally, Booster would just blow Ted until he was begging to fuck Booster, but tonight calls for a delicate balance.  He needs to keep Ted relaxed and blissed out, but not so much that he would cum too early. When he senses that Ted is approaching climax by the way he’s shivering, Booster pulls away.

Ted makes a disgruntled sort of whine, and Booster grins at him apologetically.  He changes his position, so that he’s sitting up with his legs stretched out, letting Ted’s legs straddle over his.

“We’re gonna move on to the next step, okay?” Booster says, picking up the bottle of lube.  Again Ted looks a little nervous, but Booster shakes his head and pours a generous helping of lube onto one palm.  He rubs his hands together, coating them both evenly and also warming up the lube. Then he goes to work, taking hold of Ted’s cock and encircling his fingers, dragging them up, alternating his hands so that there is constant heat and upwards pressure.

“Fuck,” Ted hisses, raising up onto his elbows to watch.  “Booster, I can’t—“

“Okay,” Booster says, so he switches to one hand and continues leisurely jacking Ted off.  He lets his other hand wander down to Ted’s balls, gently massaging and squeezing. “Better?”

“Doesn’t feel like I’m about to explode, so I guess that’s better,” Ted says, easing back down.  “Are we going to get to the fingering?”

“So impatient,” Booster says, tutting.  He shifts his right hand, the one massaging Ted’s balls, so that he’s cupping Ted’s balls in his palm, leaving his first two fingers free to slide against Ted’s perineum.  

“Oh,” Ted says.  They’ve done this before, so Booster knows the right amount of pressure to apply before Ted is gently pushing back against his hands and almost grinding against his hand.

“Yeah,” Booster says, encouragingly.  “You want it, huh?”

“I think that’s been established,” Ted says, and Booster tightens the grip on his left hand for a few seconds just to hear Ted hiss.  “God, Booster, _come on_ ,” he pleads.

Booster pulls his hands away, and Ted makes an indignant sound until he looks up and sees that Booster’s busy applying more lube to his hands.

Ted practically arches into Booster’s touch when he takes Ted’s cock in his left hand again.  

“Okay,” Booster says.  “Here we go, Ted.”

He traces Ted’s perineum again, following it down until he reaches puckered skin.  Ted tenses up a little, probably without realizing it, but Booster isn’t planning on penetrating yet.

“If I do this right,” he says aloud, just letting the pad of his finger rub back and forth on Ted’s skin, “then you’ll practically pull my finger inside you.”  He focuses his attention on Ted’s cock in the meantime, flicking across the head with his thumb and tracing the veins. Booster very slowly begins applying more pressure with his right hand, letting his finger push and pull in time with the strokes of his left.

“Mmm,” Ted says, after a minute.  “Feels nice.” He’s stretched out limply again, riding the waves of pleasure.

Already, Booster can feel Ted’s whole body relaxing and becoming more compliant.  Still stroking with his left hand, he drags his finger to Ted’s entrance, where he can feel the skin sloping inward, hot and wet.  Booster pushes there, with more intention than before, and is satisfied to feel the skin easily give way. Now, the tip of his finger is encircled with tight rings of muscle.  He slips his finger away and then repeats the motion. Ted makes a small noise, and Booster looks up, questioning.

“It’s fine,” Ted says.  “It’s weird, but it doesn’t hurt.”

Booster takes a moment to thoroughly apply lube onto his fingers.  Better to go overboard with it, just in case.

“Okay,” he says.  “Now it’s time for the main event.”  Booster’s finger slips in, just as before, but this time he doesn’t pull out right away.  “Okay, just relax,” Booster says gently. “Focus on what my other hand is doing to your cock, okay?”

“But you’re stroking so slow,” Ted whines.  Booster chuckles and tightens his fist, though still not increasing the pace, as a compromise.

Gradually, Booster’s finger begins to slide inward, centimeter by centimeter.  It’s a strange sensation, to feel the muscles contracting around him and pulling him in.  It’s been a very long time since Booster’s fingered someone this slowly—maybe not since he was an inexperienced teenager, terrified of causing internal damage.  He’s much brisker with himself, although he is admittedly a bit of a masochist.

Booster’s knuckles brush against Ted’s skin, and he realizes his finger has made it all the way inside.

“There we go,” Booster says, with a sigh.  “Just like I said. Easy. How are you doing?”

“Good.  Great,” Ted says, a little desperately.  “I want to cum.”

“Well, hold on,” Booster says.  “We haven’t gotten to the fun part yet.”  He wiggles his finger a bit, just lightly bending it and feeling the resistance.  “God, you’re so tight.”

He crooks his finger, feeling against the wall of soft, slick tissue until he finds a small patch of slightly rougher skin.

“Oh,” Ted says, softly.  “Yeah, that’s…”

“Yeah?” Booster says, unable to stop his voice from sounding a little teasing.  “What’s it feel like?”

“It’s like…” Ted closes his eyes, and Booster brushes the tip of his finger across his prostate again.  “It feels like when you’re massaging it from the outside, except… inside.”

“Wow, Ted,” Booster snorts.  “That’s poetic.”

“It feels _good_ ,” Ted protests.  “You know I’m not good with words.”

“Lucky for you that I’m so good with my hands,” Booster murmurs.  He tightens his grip on Ted’s cock again, timing his strokes with every brush against Ted’s prostate.

“Fuck,” Ted says, squirming.  “That’s so intense. I don’t think I can—“

“Then don’t,” Booster says, speeding up.  “Come on, Ted. Let me see it.”

It takes less than a minute before Ted shudders and grabs at the sheets, cum pulsing from his cock almost lazily.

“Yeah,” Booster says.  “That’s right, babe. Ride it out.”  It feels like Ted cums for longer than usual, coating Booster’s left hand.  Booster waits for him to go completely limp before he slowly removes his finger.  

“Be right back,” he says, hopping off the bed and going to the bathroom to rinse all the lube off his hands and wet a washcloth down with warm water.  When he gets back, Ted is still practically comatose, so Booster wipes him off and tosses the washcloth into the hamper. Ted pulls him down with one tired swipe of his arm, so that they’re both lying on the bed.

“Did you know,” Ted says, eyes still half-lidded, “that you’re the best?”

“Around,” Booster agrees.  “Nothing’s gonna ever keep me—“

Ted smothers him with a pillow.

“Seriously, though,” Ted says, several minutes later when they’ve collapsed again, too tired to wrestle.  “The best.”

“Mmm,” Booster says.  “So, how about that Anal Train?”

“Choo-choo,” Ted responds weakly, pumping one arm in the air.  


**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while since I've posted a multi-chap fic, so apologies if updates are a little slow. I work crazy hours.   
> Comments are always amazing motivation for me, so feel free to drop one in if you have something to say! :33  
> You can also find me at tumblr: shibascarf.tumblr.com


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